The Mindset Mentor - How I Overcame My Fear of Failure

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Are you letting your fear of failure keep you from the life you want? Today, I break down why failure isn’t the problem—it’s your fear of judgment. If you’ve been holding yourself back, this episode is for you! Looking for daily motivation? Get free inspirational messages straight to your phone, plus exclusive podcast recommendations and updates on my free workshops so you never miss out. It’s simple: just send "Quotes by Rob" to this link 👉 https://my.community.com/robdial from your phone. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the mindset mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to get some inspirational mindset text messages from me directly to your phone, text me right now 512-580-930-51st. 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about failure and how to overcome failure. Let's get real. One of the biggest roadblocks between you and the life that you want, everything

that you want, is your fear of screwing up, your fear, that deep nagging fear of failure. And it's keeping you stuck in some sort of way. And so what does this look like? Maybe you hold yourself back because you don't want to make. And you chase perfectionism, quote unquote, and say you're a perfectionist, like it's some badge of honor, like you should just be wearing a shirt that says,

look at me, I'm a perfectionist. Or maybe you're just scared that somebody will judge you if you mess up. You're scared of other people's opinions. And so you're like, I'm just gonna hold myself back, because if I do go out there and do the thing that I want, and I do screw up in some sort of way, I'm gonna hear people's judgments,

I'm gonna hear people's opinions, and that makes me feel worse about myself. So I'm just gonna stay quiet and stay in the background. Does this sound familiar? I hear it all the time. Whenever I ask people and I get on a live and it's a Zoom call with 2000 people, I'm like, what's your number one fear

that's holding you back from creating the life that you want? 90% of them at least is the fear of failure. And they think they're afraid of failing, but they're not afraid of failing. And that's what we're gonna talk about. Here's the whole kicker to all of this. Don't mess it up. That mindset of this. Don't mess it up. That mindset of, I don't wanna mess up.

I wanna make sure I do it right the first time. Whatever it might be is the worst thing that you can do for yourself in trying to become successful or trying to build an amazing life or trying to bring out your full potential. And I'm gonna share a story with you that really changed my mindset on this. A couple of years ago, I was working on becoming a pilot

and I was getting my pilot's license. And that alone is a journey, right? It's an entire journey. You're gonna notice all of your fears, all of your limiting beliefs. And one day, my instructor is named Steven, who's an incredible pilot. He's got like 50,000 hours in a plane.

He retired from UPS. He was there for 32 years. He was the head of teaching in UPS. And he taught in all of the pilots that came through and safety and all this stuff. And what we do a lot is we practice landings. And so we'll go to an airport and we'll land and then take off, go back in the pattern, land and take off. We'll do four, five, six, seven at a time. And normally, like I'm pretty good at it. Like I'm really good at landing. But one day we flew to a

different airport and the airport was just way different than the other one that I was used to. So it was a shorter runway. So instead of it being 7,000 feet length, this one was only 3,500 feet. So 3,500 feet was half the distance, like the length of it. It was also narrower. So instead of a hundred feet wide, it was 34 feet wide. So this thing looks completely different

in the air looking down than the other one did. And the biggest piece of the whole thing was this airport was built on a hill, meaning that I was not landing flat, I was actually landing uphill. So let me tell you about this, we're coming up to this airport, the approach was good, I lined up the approach, it felt really good, and then we were coming down. And because I wasn't used to just being on a flat landing, and I was used to being on a flat landing, and this one was uphill, I just like botched the landing completely. Like nothing dangerous. It was just ugly. And you know, we see no big deal. We, we end up taking back off and doing this thing

that's called a go round and a go round just means, hey, we're gonna, we end up taking back off and doing this thing that's called a go round. And a go round just means, hey, we're gonna go back around and we're gonna try it again. And I was kind of pissed because I don't like screwing up. I don't like quote unquote failing. But Steven, my instructor, he looked at me and he said something that I'll never forget. He said that was perfect. He's like, you have to screw these up now and then because you need to know what to do when I'm not here. And it was like for me, it was like a very jarring moment because, you know, watch the landing had to go around. It's scary. And for him, he was like, no big deal. He's done this so many times. He's like, that was perfect.

You have to screw up these landings so that you know what to do when I'm not here. And you can't get a perfect landing if you haven't had some imperfect landings. And so this is like the golden rule of learning. Like you have to mess up. And this is why failing is so important. Quote unquote failing is so important for growth, but also to create the life that you want. So let's break this all down. When you make mistakes, I want to actually tell you why this is so important for growth, but also to create the life that you want. So let's break this all down. When you make mistakes, I want to actually tell you why this is so important in the actual psychology and the science and the neurology of failure. Every time you screw up, your brain releases something that's called epinephrine.

And epinephrine is just adrenaline that's inside of your brain. So when you screw something up, when I bosh that landing and now I've got to go back around, it releases epinephrine is just adrenaline that's inside of your brain. So when you screw something up, when I bosh that landing and now I've got to go back around, it releases epinephrine. And this chemical basically is saying, pay attention, buddy, this is really important right now. And so it primes your brain to be even more focused so that your brain can learn faster the next time around.

So we do the go around and we come back around and the landing was pretty good after that one. And I was so much more focused and it felt better. And you have to think about this. The reason I've been trying to think about this in my head of like, why would our brain focus more after screwing up? Why would our brain release epinephrine, adrenaline

after we screw something up? And I thought about it, I was like, well, maybe if we're in the wild, let's say we're tribal people, 200,000 years ago, and you and I are hunting an animal, and we've been tracking this thing for hours, and we haven't eaten in two days, and we miss a shot at that animal,

that mistake really matters. And so your body and your brain kick into overdrive and it's like, hey, we need to get laser focused for this next attempt, because it really matters. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And so mistakes actually rewire your brain. After, you know, for me, like the one thing that I notice

is after every single flight that I have with my flight instructor, I have to drive home with no music on because it's too much. My brain feels like it's really actually repatterning itself. It's way different than driving a car or doing anything else.

It's just, there's so many other things and it's my brain's replaying all of the errors and it's adjusting. Just likeing all of the errors and it's adjusting just like it's this mental flight simulator and every time I go flying with him the nights, those nights after I sleep like a baby. It's like my brain has to rewire itself in those moments and so mistakes are really important in these situations and mistakes are really important situations. And mistakes are really important for you to, I guess you could say,

accept to beat your perfectionism. Because imperfect action is always better than no action at all. Most people who are perfectionists are not taking any action towards what is it they want, because they're waiting for, quote unquote, the perfect time. Imperfect, quote unquote, perfect waste time.

Messing up is what teaches you how to get better faster. And so why are we so afraid to fail? Like I really wanna call out the elephant in the room here. Why are so many people afraid of failure? Why are we afraid of failure? The elephant in the room is not the fear of failure, it's the fear of judgment. You worry that people will think that you're incompetent.

You worry that people are thinking you're going to think that you're stupid. You're worried that people are going to give you their opinions and they're going to shame you and they're going to make fun of you or whatever it might be that you put in your head. You imagine these worst case scenarios that almost never happen. But the truth is, most people are too busy to even pay attention to you. And that's for all of us. Most people are not paying attention to me.

They're too busy thinking about themselves to even pay attention to me. They're too busy with their own insecurities. They're too busy thinking about their own failures and things that they're afraid of, to even notice us. And so that's why it's important for us to realize that more than anything else, it's not about us trying to be perfect. It's not about us trying to get away from failure.

It's not about us trying to fear failure. It's about us accepting it as like the most important part of success, in my opinion. Like you cannot have success without failure. You cannot have failure without success. There are two sides to the same coin. And so what can we do to kind of have ourselves get a little bit more used to it? Because it's kind of the way I find failure

and getting used to failure and getting used to screwing up is that you kind of got to start small. You got to dip your toes in the water. And so what I would recommend is like, fail small. Pick something like really low stakes and just screw it up on purpose. And realize it's not that big of a deal. Try a new hobby, you know, go pick up basketball

and look like an idiot, and then go to a gym that you've never been to before and you'll never go again. You'll never see those people ever again in your entire life. Go play pickleball at some place you've never been to before and you'll never go again. You'll never see those people ever again in your entire life. You'll play pickleball at some place you've never been to and look like an idiot and then you'll never see them ever again as well. Who cares? Go screw it up. Test something that you're curious about. And then what I want you to do is I want you to start thinking about reframing mistakes as instead of them being failures as being data, the only time you actually fail in my opinion is when you give up on something.

And so if you see a mistake, that's just a data point. So instead of seeing failure as, you know, a mistake as failure, I guess you could say, use it as this reflection of this is information for me. This is information that I need. I need to know how to not do something in order to learn how to do something. And so with each time that you have a mistake,

you just need to ask yourself, what can I learn from this? So in that situation where I just completely botched the landing, why don't I look at that and go, okay, what did I screw up? And then, you know, while I'm going around the pattern, he'll say, hey, this is what happened here. This is what happened here. You needed to pull your throttle earlier.

You need to make sure that you're pulling pulling the throttle earlier so that you're you're kind of stalling at the right above the ground. But then also you got to make sure that you're pulling back on the yoke so that therefore, you know, you're not just going to slam into the ground. You got to kind of let the interesting thing that people realize about about landing a plane, you just kind of let the plane fall out of the sky. You just gotta get better at making it fall better, I guess you could say.

And you gotta get comfortable with allowing yourself to screw up into sometimes you need a second try, sometimes you need a third try. It's not failure, it's recalibrating. And that's what's really important. So you have to understand it's not just failure, it's recalibrating. And that's what's really important. So you have to understand it's not just failure, it's recalibrating.

And there's one really big difference that I've noticed as I've gotten older and people that I've hung around, there's a big difference between people who are just kind of like average people in life, where there's nothing wrong with, but they just have average lives, or people who hold themselves back in many ways, versus people who are,

I guess you could say massively influential in this world. People who you might look up to and people who might have lives that you want. Successful business people, successful athletes, successful actors, actresses, philanthropists, whatever they might be. The one thing that I've learned from really, really successful people in many aspects of success, whether they're friends, mentors, people that

have been watching from afar, is that the most successful people don't try to avoid failure, they try to go head first at failure. It's not that they try to avoid it at all, it's that they try to fail as fast as possible. And that's not like a, hey, I'm just going to tell you something motivational. Like I've seen people are like, I'm, I want to screw up as much as I possibly can. And they fail as often as they possibly can, because they realize with every single failure that they have, they're finding the route that doesn't get them to where they want to go. And they will then get to their success that they've been looking for even faster.

And so I want you to think about this because I talk about failure a lot with, you know, different groups that I coach and Zooms that all run. And when I speak on stages and stuff, you can look like if you're in a marriage right now, I'm married, I've been, you know, with my wife for 11 years now. I can look back at all of my past relationships

before my wife and I can say all of those relationships were failed. Like I failed in all those relationships. We failed. They were failed relationships, but I don't see them that way. All of them gave me knowledge that I needed to know what I wanted in a relationship, but also know what I didn't want in a relationship and also know how I should be and how I shouldn't be in a relationship.

So those weren't failed relationships. They were relationships that prepped me for the current relationship that I'm in. So I can't look at those as failures and I don't look at any of them as failures. They're just relationships that I had prior to my wife. I can also look at business as well. Now I have a business that is the most successful business I've ever had. And we have 40 employees and we're doing great. We're growing and we're hiring and all of that is amazing.

Before though, I've had multiple failed businesses, quote unquote, failed businesses. But I can look at them and be like, yeah, I screwed up those businesses and I was so bad and all that. But really what I do is I like to look at those businesses and say, I could not have the business that I have now unless I failed at business number one and business number two. I could not be the leader that I have now without having, you know, quote unquote, failed at business number one and business number two before then. It gave me the knowledge, both of those, the relationships, the businesses, everything I've done before in the past has given me the knowledge that I needed to, to become

better in the future. And so it's really important to understand this is that with every single mistake that we have, we've got to ask ourselves, how can I learn from this? We can't be afraid of failing. We can't be afraid of other people's opinions. You can't be afraid of that. And this is one of the things that I've really made a big difference with in my coaching and my training.

I train a lot of people who are coaches and growing their online coaching businesses. I use this in my business all the time. I tell my students, the very first video that they watch when they join my program is the very first thing that I talk about is like the commandments of growing an online coaching business. And number one is fuck it up and figure it out.

I take that approach in business, I take that approach in life, I take that approach in everything that I do, and it was really cool to go up in a plane with my flight instructor and for him to be like, you have to mess up because that's the only way that you're gonna get better. And I say this to people all the time

and I think it's really important for you to understand as well. If you're afraid of failure, if you're trying to avoid failure, you will not get the life that you want because failure is a massive, massive part of success. They are not separate of each other. They are two sides of the same coin.

And you've heard me say it many times before, the creator of Honda says success is 99% failure. If you're not trying to fail, you're not trying to succeed. And so what I would recommend to you, fail more. Become more comfortable with it. Get exposure therapy. The more that you do it, the less that you really care about quote unquote failure.

You see it as a mistake, you see it as a way to learn and a way for you to get better. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories, tag me at RobDialJr. And once again, if you want to get some inspirational mindset text messages from me, text me right now 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way.

I'll leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.