I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. Thomas Edison

At times in my career I have been afraid of failure.  It isn’t always a useful kind of fear either, it makes me timid, makes me self-conscious, and above all — I become obsessed with my own fear and I stop working.

Learning how to move through your own fear is essential to success.   For me, one tool is my failure file.  I collect stories and inspiration about people who turn failure or challenge into success.  When I’m feeling low, I go to these stories for motivation.

My web crush Gwen Bell posted a great video on Success.  Followed by a great poem by Jack Gilbert called Failing & Flying.

What’s in your toolbox to build success and learning from failure?

Failing and Flying

by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

The journey winds and meanders through college, to Switzerland and the United Nations, and winds up in Washington DC as an activist.  Then insert a little dotted line across the country to Seattle, presidential races, and stadiums filled with compassion seekers and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Great right?  Looking at it from this vantage point, it appears to be a lovely walk in the woods.  Every job or opportunity laid out in front of the other — growing, changing, & serving.

WRONG.

No doubt I’ve worked hard, had a lot of luck, and been blessed to find my flow.  However, at no point did I sit back in my chair and think “wow, I did it.  I feel so confident in my abilities.”  Here is what I do know: I  learn from my mistakes.  I am proud of my accomplishments.  Rarely, if ever, did I feel sure of my vision or choices.  I simply moved forward with as much joy and intention as possible.

My experience has taught me two things about confidence.

1.  Too much confidence — leads to ego — and there is no room for learning in ego. If you know everything about a product or issue — go ahead and start your infomercial, but for the rest of us, we are always evolving.  Allow yourself to have the space to “not know” everything.  Use your insecurity to build a community of like-minded warriors and seek out mentors.  Besides, recent studies have proven that Know-it-alls are closed to new ideas. Being closed to new ideas is the real tragedy.

2.  Activists changing the world or the experts you admire have no idea what they are doing! Caveat: This is not to say that experts and mentors don’t have advice and experience to draw from.  However, the reason I enjoyed working with volunteers in my nonprofit life is that most volunteers (in particular on political campaigns) are new to politics.  They sheepishly arrive in the office fresh and nervous.  For the first few weeks, they tell you over and over, that they “don’t know how to do any of this”.  They reinforce the fact that they have never worked on a campaign, never seen themselves as an activist, etc.

Then it happens.

Political campaigns move extremely fast.  If you are smart, passionate, and capable you can become a real leader in a campaign relatively easily.  Without a doubt that same volunteer (the one with all the insecurities), in a few short weeks finds themselves in a meeting of “leaders” and they realize that everyone is unsure.  Everyone makes the best choices they can with the information in front of them..  My dream case scenario is when a volunteer sitting in that situation says -  “they all have experience, but they are not magicians — I can do this.  I can change my community.” Bingo.   Those in power may have more experience than you, but they are humans who choose action.  That’s it.

So no more waiting for me.  I’ll learn to swim once I get there.  So will you! Enjoy your flow!

P.S.  So I started to write this post based on an even more awesome post about confidence, but in a terrible turn of events — I can’t find my initial motivation.  The blog was about being “(un)confident”.  It is a great blog to motivate actors and artists.  If anyone stumbles onto it — please send along or comment.  Thanks.

video via 99% and Life Remix

I mean really changed your mind on a spiritual or political issue?  After receiving new facts or information, your viewpoint evolved? If you are like me I bet it is difficult to come up with an answer.  You aren’t alone. The Boston Globe has a great article, How Facts Backfire, that confirms this inconsistency:

“In 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”

The article goes on to suggest that those people who feel “most strongly” about an issue were even more closed and often times — more incorrect than those with a more flexible viewpoint.  Part of this may be our brain chemistry, and part a social fear that admitting change may be seen as weak or an admittance of “wrongness” (See John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Race).

What’s the solution to this crazy human need to be right?

Work on your self esteem. Those with higher self esteem are as more comfortable with political discourse and more open to additional viewpoints.

Do not internalize the facts. If you define yourself with the belief, then of course, changing your opinion would also mean having to give up some part of yourself.  Instead, see facts as fluid pieces of information. DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY.  Need  help with this one, try The Four Agreements.

Do not become a pundit. When you become a pundit you rely on your viewpoint being right to stay relevant.  We are more than our beliefs.  Relevance comes from being of service.  Giving value.  Action speaks louder than words.  Practice what you preach.

Value truth, not rightness. Everyday the weather changes.  We get older.  Technology evolves.  It is a useless battle to expect that one opinion could be correct forever.  Imagine if you were asked to live you life based on the values you had at age 16?  I’d have to marry Donnie from the New Kids on the Block. Stand by my belief that “math is stupid”, and act as if no one over 30 has anything to teach me (I’m 33.)  Silliness.  The only thing that is constant is change.

Over the next day or two, give yourself the luxury of allowing new facts to open your mind.

Very cool right?

She wrote a great post Unemployable (Not Really) and she links to another great article about hiring artists (a must read in my opinion!) Bottom line, allow flexibility for your staff to live their passion and everyone thrives.  This seems like an easy win-win situation.  What can we do to cultivate more flexibility in the workplace for artists, musicians, triathletse — whatever?

Fast Company wants to find out.  A new style of social media network that allows you to add your profile & then recommend people who influence you (and maybe folks will reciprocate).  Interesting format.  Definitely worth a peak.

• 5 tactics bloggers should borrow from PR
• 11 wisdoms you can turn into cash. . .and crazy love
• getting started in social media

current books I’m digging:

• The Upside of Irrationality
• Home Rules

poem I’m feeling:

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?

This only re-affirms the importance of cultivating a strong community around your issue.  Your community makes the cause “personal” to a new audience. When creating a campaign or promoting a cause you are about — what is a unique story to help your audience connect personally to your work?