Fail more often!

Me: “So… just ‘being happy’ is not really a goal.  A goal has a measurable outcome.  And no one is happy all the time.  So how will you know when you’re successful?”  

J: “I don’t even know what success looks like for me.  How do you even figure that out?” 

Me: “By being unsuccessful. A lot.” (laughter)

J: “I wish I could do that.”

Me: “Do what? Fail? You certainly can.”  

J: “It’s as if I’m too scared to even try.  Like, I really NEED a job and I haven’t even gone on an interview in a month.” 

Me: “Why? The worst that can possibly happen is that they laugh at you AND say no. They’re not allowed to arrest you or anything.”

J: “I know, but… it’s so discouraging when you just never hear anything back and you start to feel like this big loser that no one wants to hire.”

Me: “Look, just go on EVERY interview you can, even if you don’t want the job. Turn them down if they offer it. Tell them you’ve decided to hold out for something better. Do you know how awesome that feels?  No. You don’t. Because you have to DO IT to find out.   Here’s the thing:  I want you to ask yourself who you will be in 5 years if you do NOT go on those job interviews.  Who will you be?” 

J: “I guess I’ll be pretty much the same as I am now.  A loser.” 

Me: “Forgive me, but I’m going to argue that you CAN’T be a loser.  You have to play to lose.” 

J: “You think I’m trying not to lose?  Yeah.  That’s probably true.” 
  
Me: “It’s surely true.  But here’s another question:  Who will you be in 5 years if you just go out there and try and fail and try some more?”

J: “I have no idea.  I don’t even know where to start.” 

Me: “Well, you said you need a job.  Try to get a job.  Fail at getting jobs.  You will learn how NOT to get a job.  When you know how NOT to do something, eventually you win by default.  You just run out of ways to fail.  That’s one way of accomplishing a goal.  Run out of ways to fail.  But you’ll probably succeed long before you run out of ways to not succeed.  Because every time you fail, you learn something.  So you try better next time. 

And here’s the thing:  You know that if you don’t do anything, you’ll be exactly the same as you are now.  Unhappy.  And you don’t know if you’ll be unhappy or not if you try.  Maybe you will.  Maybe not.  You don’t know because you haven’t had that experience yet.  So you have nothing to lose.  Everything you think you might lose – those things are all imaginary.  And you’re imagining some horribly painful thing when it’s really just an idea.  It’s the mere idea of being rejected or failing that has you glued to the floor.  And it means nothing. 

What does it mean if an employer doesn’t call you back for a second interview?”

J:  “It means I suck at interviewing?”

Me:  “It means you need to go on another interview somewhere else, but you were going to do that anyway.  Right? 

Until someone offers you a job that you WANT – for whatever reason – you are going to keep on interviewing every chance you get, right?  Because you’re curious to find out who you’ll be in 5 years as a result of trying and failing at things.  You already know who you’ll be if you don’t.  So there’s nothing even interesting about that.  Not getting a job you didn’t have is not a LOSS.  It’s not anything unless you make up some story about it and tell yourself that you should feel terrible because of that little piece of fiction. 

If you just go out and do it, eventually you’ll be completely anesthetized to this idea that a “no” is some kind of fatally painful experience. Because it isn’t. It is NOT painful. You’ll never see that person again in your life. It doesn’t matter what they think.  They probably don’t think badly of you for trying anyway – it takes a very special person to think badly of anyone for trying.  And quite frankly they’ll never even think about you again anyway. You walk out the door and never think of each other again. You have lost exactly NOTHING.  You already know what’s behind Door #1 and you don’t want that prize.  You already have that one and it’s not that great.  So let’s see what is behind Door #2.” 

I have this conversation word for word, because I recorded it and sent it to my friend to listen to when he is doing some creative storytelling about being a “loser”.   

Sorry, but you don’t get to be a loser.  You can be an avoider.  Or you can be a player.  But nobody loses ALL of the time.  So you can’t just define yourself by your losses, whether real or imaginary.  And if you INSIST on defining yourself by your losses, then for heaven’s sake get them over with.  If you don’t get the job today, go out and do TWO interviews tomorrow.  And THREE the next day.  However many you can find and schedule, do them all.  And just ramp it up until you run out of ways to fail.  Law of averages says that eventually someone will hire you, right?  Right.  Just stay in the game, and fail more often.