How to Deal With Failure (When Everyone’s "Winning")

Welcome back to another episode of the Self Work Podcast. This is episode 22. And today I want to talk about something that most people in our generation run away from, which is failure. How do you actually deal with failure in this generation in the time we live in? Specifically, how do you handle failure without losing your sense of self, which is very important? Because if you scroll through the internet right now, it looks like everyone's winning, which isn't the truth. Everyone's posting milestones, everyone's launching something, traveling somewhere, doing something impressive. And just to even go in a tangent, I find it so interesting how holidays and traveling has become so accessible all of a sudden. And do you ever question yourself and ask yourself, what do these people do to make money? Because places like Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Japan have become so accessible and people are traveling multiple times a year. And that is on the point I'm trying to make. It is how do you deal with failure in your life, fully knowing that you can go on the internet and see everyone doing something? Because if you're not careful, it will actually start to feel like you're the only one who's not keeping up. But here's the thing, no one really teaches you what happens when you fail. Like genuinely fail. We've been told by our parents and society, you need to work hard, be confident and chase your dreams. But when it doesn't work out, everyone kind of looks away, no one tells you what to do with that silence. No one prepares you for the embarrassment, the anxiety, that weird concoction or weird mix of shame and confusion that comes with things not going your way. I think we built a culture ultimately that glamorizes winning and quietly berries losing. So when we fail or when we fall, we panic because we've got no blueprint for recovery, no one's ever taught us how to bounce back. And the problem with that is it makes people scared to even start. Like people don't even give themselves a real shot anymore because they've already predicted the pain of failure before it's happened. And I get it. We've all been conditioned to believe that failure equals humiliation. So in today's episode, I want to break this whole thing apart. We're going to talk about fear. We're going to talk about the mindset behind failure about what actually happens to you internally when you lose something you really wanted. And then we're going to talk about how to rebuild because ultimately that is the most important part. How do you rebuild in a step by step? Wait, let this episode be a mirror because maybe you are at a stage right now where you've just taken a loss. You've tried something and it didn't really work out and you're trying to stay positive but deep down you're kind of tired of starting again. I don't know if that's massively relatable where you've tried something you've put your all into it. It didn't work out and now you're just completely drained. You just cannot be bothered to start something new. Or maybe you've had too many full stars. You know, some of you guys don't even try hard enough to experience true failure. Or maybe you're scared to even try because you don't know if you've got another rebuild in you echoing why I said earlier. Either way, I want you to know this. Failing doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're still in motion. So let's get into this episode. The first thing we are going to talk about is the fear of failure before you even start because this is the first barrier. The fear before the failure. The thing that keeps so many people stuck at the starting line. We've built this world where everyone's obsessed with being seen doing well. I've spoken about this in a previous podcast episode. So the idea of doing something and it not working out is absolutely terrifying because now failure isn't just private. It's public. It's visible. It's on your feed. It's on your story. And you can't hide from it. So what happens is people avoid it altogether. They want to maintain their fake ego of being a nonchalant person or someone that has never been seen failing. So most of you guys then overthink you overplan you spend months researching or waiting for the right time. But that waiting is just fear, dressed up as preparation. And the scary part of all of this is most people have never even experienced true failure because they've never gone all in on something. Have you ever worked day and night on something? You've put your soul, your money, your effort, you've sacrificed so many social events and motives with your friends for it to not work out. I love you guys. I've never experienced that. Most of you guys just dabble, you test the water, you half commit. So when it doesn't work out, you just tell yourself, see, I knew you would it. But the truth is you never gave it a real shot. You've protected your ego at the expense of your potential. And that fear, you know, the whole idea of what if it goes wrong, it doesn't come from nowhere. It usually starts from early on. You fell once and instead of being taught how to learn from it, you're punished for it. Maybe in school, maybe by your parents, maybe at home, especially if you grew up in a household where failure wasn't allowed. Certain ethnic households are like this where failure is a non-negotiable. You cannot fail. You're being compared to your cousins, your competing with your friends, your competing with the neighborhood. Like in some families, I know one mistake isn't just a mistake is a reflection of the whole family. So from young, you've been taught to pay it safe. You learn that safety equals love and that approval only comes when you are perfect. Very unfortunate. And that conditioning actually follows you into adulthood. So by the time you're older, even small risks feel like threats. You start catastrophizing every possible outcome. If this flop some done, if I don't get this job, I'll never recover. If this person leaves me, I will never find better. And it's very wild to me how many people are paralyzed by stories that have it even happened yet. You hypothesize everything. And I think that's the real tragedy. The fear keeps you from even meeting the version of yourself that could have handled it. Like your scared of an outcome that you haven't even survived yet, even though you would have probably handled it. There's been so many situations in my life where I was catastrophizing and hypothesizing a horrible outcome. But the thing about me is I'm a bit stubborn. I like to keep creeping forward, even if it means going back to gear one, meaning that I would slow all the way down. Something would have probably taken me two weeks because I'm scared of failure. It'll probably take me a month or a half. But nevertheless, I'll get to the finishing line. And when I get to the finishing line, I almost always remind myself that it wasn't even that bad. I did it anyways, which is why now I'm at this stage where the fear of failure doesn't stop me actually allows me to full steam ahead because I know all the stories I'm currently telling myself do not really matter because I'm going to end up facing it. And then I can see in real time whether I'm able to handle it or not. And that's what I want people to acknowledge in this generation. We've tied our sense of worth to external validation. So failure feels existential. It feels so weird. So you don't just lose. You are at a loss or you are the loss. And that's why most people stay stuck. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is what actually happens when you fail. Let's say you push past that fear. You must have some confidence. You actually try you go for it and then you fail. What happens then? For my experience, I always go into an initial state of shock simply because I worked very hard. I put all my effort into it and it didn't work out. But in that shot, quickly transitions into disappointment. But the most interesting thing I noticed and I've actually spoke to a lot of people about this and they all relate, which is the moment you fail, it doesn't actually end there. It doesn't end with that specific failure. It's almost as if your brain or your mind reopens every old file of pain. It has stored and then you start remembering every insecurity you've ever had. You start remembering every time things went wrong and that is what keeps most people stuck. What actually happens is pretty simple. Your brain expected one outcome and got another and that gap between expectation and reality is what hurts. That's the drop. That's what I call the emotional whiplash. What most people do when that happens is they personalize it. They don't say this didn't work out. They say I'm not good enough and that makes the event mean something about their identity. That's why most people never recover. When you look at most people that I've tried something and failed. Instead of analyzing the situation, they just attack themselves. They spiral into shame. Once you enter that space for my personal opinion and for my personal experience, reflection becomes impossible. You can't think logically when you're in survival mode and that's why after a failure, everything feels foggy. You can't focus. You start replaying the moment over and over again. What you should have said. What you could have done. You start telling yourself stories that don't exist and eventually you lose confidence. Not because you're incapable but because you've convinced yourself you are. And here's what I had to learn the hard way. Failure doesn't destroy you. Resistance too. It does. The more you fight, the reality of what happened. The longer you stay stuck and the longer you stay stuck, the more you start identifying as a failure instead of someone who failed once. Big difference. And if you can learn to actually separate the two things, meaning the identity and the event itself, you've already won half the battle because failure is data. It's feedback. It's information about what didn't work and it's not a life sentence, but the world doesn't teach you that. The world teaches you to hide your losses, to bury them, to distract yourself, to jump into the next thing before you've even processed the last one. And that's why so many people repeat the same mistakes because they never pause long enough to understand it. You've never given yourself that space to actually have a look at it and go, okay, what actually happened here? What was I expecting? What was I assuming? And where did it go left? Where did it go wrong? Not in a self-critical way, but in an honest way. And that's how you ultimately grow and that's how you rewire. Every failing is like your mind updating its mental map. If you keep driving without checking the map, you keep ending up in the same dead end. And this is what one of my old mentors used to tell me. So just teach us off to take the pause. That's where growth happens. Also coupled with being a spiritual person, I think what really helps me stay grounded when I fail is that God's timing and God's plan is the best of plans. I can try my best. And if it doesn't work out, it was not meant to be. It doesn't discredit my effort. It doesn't discredit my ability and my capability. It just means that it wasn't written. And there's been so many times in my life where one door closes, the door that I really wanted to get through. But then another door with open and that opportunity is much better than the one that I was initially expecting. So the point of making is try to separate the event of failure from your identity. Do not mix it with your identity because the moment you start seeing yourself as a failure is the moment you'll forever be stuck in the same place. So now that we've spoken about the fear of failure and what happens when you fail, let's talk about what comes after because what comes off is very interesting because you're stuck in this weird in between stage. You failed, you've processed it a little, but you're still bruised. You want to move forward, but you don't know how to. This is where most people quit because it's not dramatic anymore. It's quiet, it's the part of the movie or the part of the episode where nothing's happening. You're not inspired, you're not motivated, you're just there. And that's the hardest part to sit in. Rebuilding is very slow and the reason why people don't rebuild well is because they think that they have to be inspired to start again. But inspiration rarely shows up on time and this is one of the best most profound things I've read in a long time. Now that I've learned that inspiration doesn't always have to be there for you to get started again, I actually just focus on momentum. Right, momentum comes before motivation. You rebuild through small movement, through doing one thing that reminds you that you are still in control. You also have to learn to talk to yourself differently here because if you're not careful, you'll make the comeback conditional upon feeling ready. But the truth is you'll never feel ready. You just have to move whilst you're still unsure. Moving through uncertainty is a skill, something that you have to develop throughout time. And as I said, being a spiritual person and having full trust and faith in God makes it a bit easier, makes it a lot easier actually. I've learned that moving through uncertainty is much better than trying to find that perfect entry point. And that's why and that's why I always say self-talk matters. You can't rebuild with the same language that broke you. You can't keep saying I'm such an idiot and expect confidence to grow. You have to start talking to yourself like someone you actually want to listen to. That means replacing the I'm done with okay, that hurt but I can handle it. That means replacing I've ruined everything with that didn't go how I planned but it is still fixable. That language changed everything and don't isolate yourself. This is another trap that a lot of people fall into because of Monk Modo, all of these nonsensical things, these gurus push because this is another trap. When you are hurting, it feels safer to disappear. You don't want to explain, you don't want to answer questions, you don't want people's opinions but isolation turns pain into identity. Believe it or not, you start to believe the voices in your head because there's no one else to challenge it. You need people who can see you clearly when you can't, which is like being around good people are nice, amazing people, i.e. your friends or some people that you trust is very important or even having a mentor. You need someone to say you're not crazy or just human. That's how you shorten the recovery window. When you share, you heal faster, granted that you're sharing with the right people. And the last thing to I guess make this a lot more better, especially when it comes to bouncing back is discipline. You can't let one failure knock down every other part of your life. It's very important. I used to do this a lot, I would fail and all of a sudden I'm sleeping late, I'm eating junk, I'm not going to the gym and I've started to pick up all of these random bad habits simply because I've filled in one area. And then you wonder why you feel worse because you let one domino take down the whole road. Just remember keep your commitments, keep your routine, your rituals, even when you feel numb because the point isn't to feel good, the point is to stay consistent until you do. And there's a certain mindset shift that you have to go through from failure to feedback. And I think this is the point that most people miss. They see failure as this brutal soul crushing thing, but when you zoom out and you really sit with it, you start to realize that failure is simply just feedback. Like that is all it actually is, is data, it's information about what didn't go how you expected and that is it. But what's the difference between people that see it that way versus the average person, the average person attaches meaning to it. And this is where everything changes in life. I am so vocal about this and I always remind people that stop attaching meaning to some of these things. Someone could say something to you, someone could do you wrong. They've done you wrong. That is all it is. You know, maybe you can understand why they did you wrong. But once you attach meaning to it, you attach layers, we call a humiliation we're incompetent. We show ourselves proof that we're not cow for something or we're not good enough. But think about it. If you are playing a game and you died on level five, you wouldn't throw the console out the window. You just try again. You'd learn what did you do wrong? You try any strategy. Maybe you would even laugh about it. So why do we treat life differently? We've been conditioned to catastrophize failure because no one normalizes it. Everyone hides it. You only see the winds, never the restarts. So when you lose, you think it's the end, but it's actually the start of something better. You've got to rewire the way you see it. When something doesn't go your way, instead of saying I failed, just tell yourself I collected data. You learned something new. And it's very important to acknowledge that there's something that success can never teach you and that's the beauty of it. Success feeds your ego, failure feeds your mind. And the mind is what builds the next version of you. But I know this isn't always easy to accept, especially when emotions are high. So let's actually briefly talk about that because I don't want you to think resilience means being emotionless. That's not strength. That's you repressing your normal emotions that you're meant to have when things aren't going your way. When you fail, you're meant to feel something. Always remember that. You're supposed to feel sad. You're supposed to feel disappointed. Maybe even angry. That's a part of being human, but and this is very important for you to internalize. You cannot live there. You've got to feel it and then move it. I used to think that strength was pretending I was fine. You know how men are and how he's been programmed. No, I'm good. It's whatever. But that's not strength. That's literally you denying everything whilst having a good posture. Real strength in my opinion is being able to sit with those emotions, acknowledge them and then make a conscious decision about what you're going to do with them. You ask yourself, does this emotion serve me? If it does cool, use it. Let the frustration drive you. Let the sadness humble you. Let that embarrassment keep you accountable. But if it doesn't, if it's just looping pain with no direction, let it go. And that's where you start to rebuild power because you're no longer at the mercy of your emotions. You're choosing how to use it. You're not detaching from it. You're integrating it. And that's what maturity is all about. That is why I'm so big on emotional regulation and going away from being dysfunctional because once you learn how to integrate your emotions, the next level is detachment. Not detachment as a not caring emphasis on that. I'm talking about letting go of control over the outcome. The law of detachment is very real. When you give your best or something and release the result, life starts flowing differently. You stop moving from desperation and you start moving from peace. Like when you're trying too hard to win, you radiate fear. People can actually feel it. Opportunities can feel it. And you start chasing instead of attracting. And the more you chase, the further it runs. I've been actively implemented this in my life for the last two years. Everything that I do from here right now, I try my best by release the outcome. I'm like, if it works out fantastic, I worked very hard for this. I put my blood sweat and tears into it. If it didn't work out, the best thing is I've got data. What went wrong? What could I have improved them? Also, could I continue doing this and just restart and rebuild? Have you ever noticed that the people who seem to be having everything going for them are usually the ones who don't look like they are trying so hard? And it's not because they don't care. It's because they've detached from needing it to prove something within them. They still put the work in, but their worth isn't hanging on the result. And that's what you have to master. If you really want to navigate failure, you need to acknowledge and internalise this idea that failure is inevitable, but my identity will never be attached to it. Carrying deeply while staying unattached. That's the best way to put it. And that's how you stop letting failure define you. You show up, you do your best, you give it everything. And then you let life do what it's got to do. That is what peace is ultimately. I want to briefly mention something that came to my mind while recording this episode, which is how do you stay grounded while still losing? because we've spoken about what happens after you lose and what actually stops you from trying so you never experience losing. But the part that no one really explains is what do you do when you're actually losing when you're in that valley of despair because it's one thing to say reframe and detach from the outcome but when you're really in it, when your plans are falling apart, when your confidence is shaky and I guess your room is quiet, that's where it gets real. You know that space between what you hoped would have happened and what is actually happening? Perhaps you put money into a business and you know you were really hopeful that it was going to work. You were so certain you followed all the steps and then all of a sudden you can see your money shrinking daily. The business plan isn't rolling. That's where most people lose themselves. They start comparing and they start convincing themselves that everyone else has it figured out except them. But here's the truth, everyone you think is winning has taken more else than you could ever imagine. They just don't broadcast them and I think that's what I have a big issue with which is transparency. If people knew how many failures it took to become successful, you would actually be more excited to fail. And I know people right now, big names, big platforms who are taking loss after loss but you would never know. We just have these conversations at a dinner table where we're just talking about life and they'll be talking about how their business is failing or their career is failing or how there's a lot of failures in their life. But on social media, they're going to be driving a Lambo calling you a brokeie because the internet only shows you one side and that's what's messed up this generation in regards to failure. You're measuring your progress against someone else's highlight reel and you're comparing your reality to someone else's marketing. And that's a losing game. You're never going to fill enough if you keep playing it. So when you're in that losing season, you really have to ground yourself. You have to come back to reality. You have to remind yourself that life isn't content. It is seasons. There's going to be chapters where everything flows. There's going to be ones where nothing makes sense. Both are necessary. Both are sacred. And in those low seasons, your only job is to stay faithful. Faithful to the mission. Keep showing up. Keep your small promises to yourself. And that's how you rebuild trust. Most people lose confidence because they break too many promises to themselves after they fail. They start ghosting their goals. They stop doing little things that made them feel alive. You have to protect your rituals even when life feels pointless. That gym session, that journaling, that walk, that one healthy meal, whatever it is, I want you to just do it. Not because it fixes everything, but because it keeps you aligned. It reminds you that you still have power. And look, I'm not going to lie. It's going to feel very slow. This isn't a quick fix. Like you're going to be doing all of this effort and nothing's going to change. But trust me, something is changing inside of you. You're building that resilience. You're training your nervous system to stay calm under pressure. You're creating why I call that kind of stability that no success could ever give you. And that is what most people do not comprehend. Success doesn't build character, loss does because success is a mirror. It reflects who you already are. If you think about it, you know, that's why sometimes say you have to be the person before you attain the lifestyle. So when you do attain the lifestyle, you already are that person. But failure reveals you. It shows you what you run away from what you cling onto, what you actually believe about yourself. And that's why I always say learn to lose gracefully. Not because you enjoy it, but because it teaches you what winning never will. Losing is not the opposite of success in my opinion. It is a part of it. And when I frame it that way actually allows me to be very strategic with the way I see failure, you can't separate them. Every win you ever have sits on top of 10 invisible losses that got you there. So if you're losing right now, relax the hell out chill. You're not behind, you're just being built. And that reframe ultimately changed a lot of things. So to make this practical because this is ultimately a self-work podcast, I know you're probably listening thinking, okay, cool. All of this sounds great. But what do I actually do when I'm in that place? Let me actually break it down. And I'm going to teach you guys some things that I personally do when I am in a dry season. Number one, write out the failure. I mean, they're quite literally get a piece of paper and write what's happened. Not what you think happened. Not the story you've built around it, just the facts. What did he do? What was the outcome? What did he expect? The goal here isn't to relive it. It is to separate emotions from data because clarity kills catastrophizing. Number two is to identify the story. Once you've written it down, read it and ask yourself, what story did I attach to this? Was it I'm not smart enough? Was it always messed things up? Whatever it is, I want you to catch it and nip it in the butt because those stories are what keep you trapped. And once you see the story, you can start rewriting it. Number three is to rebuild your rhythm. Find one habit that grounds you and don't let go of it. For me, that is journaling. For some people it's training. For some people it's praying or going on walks. Whatever it is, let that be your anchor because when everything feels chaotic, your rituals are the only proof that you still have control. That means waking up early in the morning, having a slow morning, going to the gym, journaling, praying. These are the things that allow you to still feel like you are in control. Number four, connect with people. Contrary to most advice you see out there, do not isolate, do not ghost. Find someone you can talk to even if it is just one person. You'll be surprised how healing it is to say out loud, "Yeah, I've messed up, but I'm working on it." It takes the pressure off and it reminds you that everyone is still figuring it out and nobody really knows what it is that they're doing. Number five, another thing that I do is really reframe the language I use. I don't really ever say I failed. I say I learned. I start saying I'm in the process when people ask me, "Oh, whatever happened to that thing, it didn't work out why." I learned a lot of lessons. I learned something from it. I never say I failed because those words shape how your brain encodes the memory. If you call something a failure, your mind stores it as trauma. Believe it or not. If you call something feedback, your mind stores it as growth. Number six, another thing that I actively implement is detaching from the outcome. As I said, being a spiritual person, you can care about the process of not that blows. You cannot control the outcome of something, but you can definitely control what you contribute towards it. Unlustfully, rebuild yourself respect. Because that is what failure really tests. It's not your intelligence and it's not your talent. It's your relationship with yourself. Can you still show up for yourself when the world's not clapping? Can you still move with dignity when no one's watching? That is what self-respect ultimately is. And that is what real resilience looks like. Failure tests your character. It doesn't look at your capabilities and your competencies and your technical skills. It just asks you a question. Can you maintain your rituals? Can you maintain your self-respect even if the world's burning down? And when you guys are actively implementing that into your life. So to close off this podcast episode, I didn't want this one to be super long today. I want you to process what it is that we spoke about in regards to failure. Something that we all experienced, but no one really talks about properly. The truth is ultimately, failure doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're real. It brings you back down to earth and it forces you to get honest about who you are and what you're willing to work for. And honestly, in this generation, that's extremely rare because everyone wants to win, but not everyone wants to work. Everyone wants to be seen as strong, but no one wants to admit that strength is built through struggle. You can't bypass it. You can't affirm your way around it. You have to go through it. So if you're in the losing season right now, if you've been taken absolutely catastrophic losses, don't rush it. I want you to sit in it, learn from it, let it humble you and let it strip away your ego, your expectations and your timelines. Because what is left after that? The real you. And next time you fall, don't call it failure. Just call it feedback, call it refinement, because that's what it is. You're not falling behind your being recalibrated and reshaped. Remember this before we part ways. The goal isn't to never fall. The goal is to keep getting back up in a world that wants you to stay down. And if you can do that, you've already won. So that's it for this episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. And I want you guys to take this serious man. Your ability to overcome failure and process failure will determine the trajectory of your life. And as usual, if this has resonated with you, share it with someone, send it to someone who's going through a setback or someone who needs to hear it so they can start their life again. And as always, take care of your mind, protect your peace and keep doing the self-work. And I'll see you in the next one.