High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 303: How to Flush the Failure

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” Henry Ford High performers let go of mistakes. Mistakes and disappointments can teach us a lot about ourselves and lead to success. It’s important when we do experience failure that we see it as learning tool – perhaps motivating us to improve and get better. The best, learn, burn and return. This Week’s Power Phrase:  I see failure and mistakes as opportunity to learn and grow. I flush it!

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Sindra's here. It's High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. How are you? I'm doing awesome. How are you today? I'm so excited to have you here because we're going to talk about how to flush the failure, right?

Yes. Which is so cool because I am not a big sports girl, but I pay enough attention to know when I recognize something that sounds familiar. And ESPN had something that we got to talk about today. So let's talk about this, how to flush the failure. All right. Henry Ford said, failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. I like that. There you go. It's like every day for us here, right? And then you have a quote from my favorite Oprah.

I do. She said, I don't believe in failure. It's not failure if you enjoyed the process. Okay. I always think you learn something even when you fail. Yeah, right. Absolutely. You've got an example to start with, and we're going to talk about the ESPN article because there was this article that was written, and it was like, oh, well, the mental, I don't remember exactly how they put it, but the mental training coach that we worked with. And I looked, I'm like, that is my friend.

They are talking about my friend. I know this person. On ESPN. So Saturday, there's an article that came out on ESPN. And during the Saints game two Sundays ago, two weekends ago, Adam Thielen, after the fumble, went over to the sidelines and he kind of actioned like he was flushing a toilet. And so an ESPN reporter. Did you see that? I did not. Oh, okay.

But I heard about it. And an ESPN reporter asked him about it. And he said, well, he learned about it seven years ago when I started working with the Minnesota State football team. So kind of cool. We had a tiny toilet on the sidelines. And you have a tiny toilet with the Minnesota State football team. So kind of cool. We had a tiny toilet on the sidelines. And you have a tiny toilet with you. I love it. So if people need this as a reminder,

you can just flush it. We're having some fun today. But he motioned like flushing the toilet. People asked him, how did he move on so quickly? And that's what he said. He flushed the toilet. And then later on he made this amazing quickly? And that's what he said. He flushed the toilet. He flushed it.

And then later on, he made this amazing catch to help the Vikings win the game. So what do you mean by live and let go? The new concept for folks like myself. Sure. So in Beyond Grit, there's a practice number nine, and that's what it's called. And this is what I mean is that we are not perfect as people. And the world's best know that they have to be kind to themselves. They have to let go of mistakes quickly.

Really, they have to decide to live life full out. And that's what we're talking about today. So you say that failure is a part of each of our journeys. And what do you mean by that? I mean, we have to learn, right, through all that? Yes. And really, failure is essential for us to perform at our best. For us to live life full out is essential for us to live our best life.

So what if your only goal was to try to fail and train yourself to fail that failure is OK? And so what if we adopted the mindset that the more we fail, the quicker that we get to our goal? And what do we want to avoid in this type of thinking? We want to avoid that we are our mistakes because we aren't. And some people, when they make a mistake, they think it's who they are. But a mistake is really not like it's what you did, not who you are. And so sometimes what can happen is we see mistakes as a validation of our own negative self-talk. And we think, you know, I told you you couldn't do that, Sindra. And so instead, we really want to not let mistakes impact our belief in ourselves.

Why is this topic so important to us? It's really important because we don't learn to fail. We don't actually, I think, try to fail. I think that's what we really need to do is we can't live life full out and we can't be in the present moment because that's the only place our best happens. The present is the only place that we can really thrive. And I have this rule I call the 95-5% rule. It means that what I think that the best leaders, executives, the world's best athletes, they spend 95% of their time in the present,

and they only look back to the past to think about their successes and only look to the future to think about their best self and where they're going. So as opposed to looking towards the future, into the past, what should we be doing instead? Okay. So sticky concept to help you flush your failure today. So I talk about learn, burn, return. What I mean by this is we have to make a mistake, just learn and think, okay, it's not who I

am. And this next time I will, and even take a really lighthearted approach to that. And then we have to burn or flush it. Right. That's where the flush it comes in. OK. Or you can think of like the song, let it go. I'd rather go with flush.

Yeah. But then we have to burn it. We have to move on quickly and get back to the present and think about, OK, in sports, we might say next play. We might say if we're in financial planning, next call, right? Like next client call. We have to move on quickly to move on and really protect ourselves and our confidence. So how would you summarize today for us?

I'd say that the best live and let go. They know mistakes and disappointments really teach us something. And they know that failure is really a learning tool. And maybe we should try to fail every day because that helps us get us closer to our goal. Not being afraid to fail. I like that. What's today's power phrase, Cendra? I see failure and mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. I flush it. Let's do it on a Monday. Flush it. There you go, Logan. Logan, that's a very tiny toilet for you. Cendra, thank you so much. If people want to get in touch with you, how do they find you?

You can head over to Dr. Cinder, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A, and you can find the podcast there, the book, anything you'd need there. All right. Go improve your life with Dr. Cinder Kampoff. Beyond Grit is the name of her book. Thanks. We'll see you next week. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.