Risk & Business Magazine General Insurance Services - Fall 2020 | Page 13

LONG-TERM SUCCESS
just take time. They just take time. It’s not
about the number of hits but rather the
number of times you step up to the plate.
How do you know if you’re going the right
way?
Just ask three questions:
1) Am I gaining experience?
2) Will these experiences help?
3) Can I afford stay on this path for a while?
Sometimes the answer will be no.
Sometimes the answer will be yes. But the
answers will help point out the fact that
you are learning, you are doing, you may be
failing, but you’re moving . . .
Seth Godin is the best-selling author of 19
books including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and
Tribes. He writes one of the most popular
blogs in the world and routinely speaks at
places like TED.
Seth offers similar advice in an interview he
did on The Tim Ferriss Show: “The number
of failures I’ve had dramatically exceeds
most people’s, and I’m super proud of that.
I’m more proud of the failures than the
successes because it’s about this mantra of
‘Is this generous? Is this going to connect? Is
this going to change people for the better?
Is it worth trying?’ If it meets those criteria
and I can cajole myself into doing it, then I
ought to.”
Seth did another interview with Jonathan
Fields on the popular self-help podcast
Good Life Project. He said, “I’m a big fan
of poof.” What’s poof? The idea that you
try and if it’s not working—poof. You try
something else.
I’m sharing this article as an excerpt of
some of research, lessons, and ideas on
resilience in my new book You Are Awesome:
How to Navigate Change, Wrestle With
Failure, and Live and Intentional Life.
And what will I do if this book fails?
Well . . . poof.
On to the next thing.
Don’t get me wrong. I want it to succeed!
I’d like to talk about You Are Awesome and
the ideas it contains in interviews and meet
people whose lives were helped or who
shifted or evolved in a meaningful way
through this conversation. I want for that. I
wish for that!
But I can’t determine that.
All I get to do is take more pictures.
All I get to do is whatever I do right now and
whatever I do next.
And that’s the point.
I have to keep going with my next book,
my next talk, my next project, my next
whatever, whether this one is a hit or a poof.
You need to keep going, too.
What do I know about thickening our skin
and working our way up to awesome?
Well, one thing I know is that we need to
stop looking at successful people as if we’re
looking at products of success. At success
after success. Because you know what we’re
really looking at? People who are just really
good at moving through failures.
MOVING THROUGH
FAILURES IS THE REAL
SUCCESS.
BUILDING RESILIENCE IS
THE REAL SUCCESS.
The failures and the losses are part of the
process for anyone who is willing to try. All
successful people swim in ponds of failure.
They swallow and choke on failure. They’re
covered in gobs of failure. They have failure
in their hair and under their fingernails.
So what’s the real goal?
Be like the T-1000.
Do you remember the liquid metal bad guy
from Terminator 2? Take a bullet to your
shoulder. Take a bullet to your thigh. Let
it heal over quickly as you tighten your
menacing smile and keep walking forward
and forward. Watch out for vats of molten
steel in the middle of the abandoned
warehouse! Those really could kill you.
But fortunately there aren’t too many of
those around.
Cy Young also has the most losses.
Nolan Ryan also has the most walks.
Todd Hanson says “Do it for free for 10
years.”
And wedding photographers just take more
pictures.
The most counterintuitive way to building
more resilience and long-term success is
remember it’s not how many home runs
you hit that counts.
It’s how many at-bats you take.
The wins pile up when you increase the
number of times you step up to the plate. +
Neil Pasricha is the New York Times-bestselling
author of The Happiness Equation
and The Book of Awesome series, which has
been published in 10 countries, spent over
five years on best-seller lists, and sold over a
million copies. Pasricha is a Harvard MBA,
one of the most popular TED speakers
of all time, and after 10 years heading
Leadership Development at Walmart he
now serves as Director of The Institute for
Global Happiness. He has dedicated the
past 15 years of his life to developing leaders,
creating global programs inside the world’s
largest companies and
speaking to hundreds
of thousands of people
around the globe.
GlobalHappiness.com
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