Failure is proof that you were willing to experiment and push the boundaries of what makes you comfortable. In the process of growth, it is a necessary part of making it happen.

No, nobody likes the feeling of failure and we certainly wouldn’t tolerate it for life and death situations (e.g. I wouldn’t want my surgeon to fail), but this is where lessons are learned. Others may have gone before you, left some guidelines and even offered their own failures as a route to avoid, yet it requires experimentation to find out for yourself.

However, there’s no sugarcoating that failure is painful and doesn’t get easier (it can actually feel worse). I also don’t subscribe to this online love fest of celebrating it, especially if others were recipients of that experience. I mean, I can’t think of a single audience who appreciates watching a performer fail to entertain them.

It simply comes down to a willingness to shred those painful waters because the end result is something more magnificent than what you thought was possible.

Having a system in place for the things you do in life is infinitely more powerful than simply wishing for things to get done. You stick with the system and many accomplishments are made.

However, I’ve noticed this horrible habit of people trying to fit a system rather than adopting a system to fit them.

There’s a desperation to follow in the footsteps of others, or to even take advantage of the latest app, that we force ourselves into the mold. While this may produce some results, it’s a constant fight of willpower to sustain.

Eventually, it will crumble.

I tend towards two questions when putting together the systems in my life:

1. What will make this easier?
2. How can I make this consistent?

For instance, at the stage of life I’m in now with small pockets of time throughout the day, sitting at my computer to write for large swaths of time is not happening. However, a legal pad and pen first thing in the morning while the kids watch cartoons is much easier.

As circumstances change, this system will change as well.

It’s hard to fit a mold, but it’s easy to create one for yourself. The keys are personalization and consistency because systems over time create powerful outcomes.

The hardest lens to look through is an objective one on your own life. To put aside the bias and rose-tinted glasses is a tough feat.

Looking back at my own life, as I so often do, I had to come to terms that I wasn’t the greatest person. As much as I would like to think I was a good person, there is much evidence to show otherwise.

There’s evidence in my actions, words and intentions.

Much, if not all, came from a place of insecurity. This would later get bottled up and transformed into anger, making me some sort of twisted alchemist.

However, being able to see my own history for what it is has opened opportunities for real growth, healing and transformation. As I realized, those negative traits don’t simply go away, they stay and manifest in other ways.

It’s what I tell my students: the people around you don’t go away when you graduate—they become adults.

Being a better person then, isn’t only looking at ways to improve, but really recognizing where are you suck.

I wasn’t as good as I thought, but I still have a lifetime to get better.

My initial decision making process before buying a book went something like this:

Is the premise interesting to me?
Sample a bit—does it draw me in?
If yes, then pick it up.

Alternatively, someone would suggest a book for me and I would also pick it up with no questions asked.

Then along came user reviews on Amazon… then Goodreads… book bloggers… social media… each review affirming or doubting a decision to buy.

Authors doubled down on getting as many reviews as possible because people paid attention. They knew it was now part of their audience’s decision making process.

This extended to other products, sites and businesses.

While this may seem like a good thing, it presents a serious problem: many reviews are fake.

It’s ridiculously simple to incentivize people to leave five-star reviews and even easier to get them to leave one-star ones.

Even with the “real” ones, if you read carefully, it’s quite clear whether it’s a legitimate praise or unwarranted criticism (many one-star reviews on the App Store for Apple are people complaining they have to pay for a product). Right now, it’s at the point where my starting point is skepticism about any of them.

It’s just another way to game the system where algorithms reward input with attention.

The only thing that really seems to work is what has worked since the beginning of time: word-of-mouth.

Legitimate people having conversations and making unsolicited recommendations or cautionary tales. Oh, and actually having an experience with the product/service/business itself.

Anything outside of that can promptly be ignored.

I was never much of a planner. My general approach was an ad hoc, free-spirit kind of lifestyle while life just happened as it will.

It was an attitude that permeated everything I did.

To me, planning was nothing more than trying to take control of a world that wants chaos. Plus, there is no spontaneity in it and where was the fun in that?

The issue was when it came to things like a magic show, it was horribly obvious my act wasn’t planned from beginning to end. I was getting by an experience.

In the classroom, I just went with a daily plan and no idea of a bigger picture. I stayed afloat thanks to my own creativity and the roadmap of others.

Let’s not get into how little I would plan life events.

I’ve come to understand, appreciate and learn that having the proper preparation and a meticulous plan are not impediments to life: they are necessary. The more planning you put into something, the better prepared you will be for whatever circumstance comes your way. Will there be curveballs?

Always.

But, those get added to the next plan.

Take, for instance, comedians. Their entire act is planned and carefully rehearsed—even those moments where it appears they are going off the rails or improvising. They rarely, if ever, improvise. Each “quick comeback” or one-liner is something prepared from a show where it happened before.

All I know is that after decades of the false promise of “I got this,” meticulous planning is finally ensuring that I do got this.

Many of us are familiar with Occam’s razor as a tool for explanation, but Hanlon’s razor flies under the radar.

Simply put: don’t attribute malice when it is easily explained by stupidity.

We are in a world of quick, knee-jerk reaction decisions and shallow thinking. Unfortunately, you cannot make an assumption that underneath that is a pool of wisdom.

Of course, if we keep invoking Hanlon’s razor quite liberally, we run into the natural assumption that everything is done out of sheer stupidity. Which, in consideration, isn’t too far off the mark:

Just go for a drive in rush-hour traffic.
Or spend five minutes on Twitter.
Or listen to a politician’s speech.

Yes, there’s definitely enough malicious intent out there and we should be on guard for it. However, for the everyday judgement, Hanlon’s razor serves us best.

There are some areas… many areas actually… where I accept my competency of knowledge is limited. If there’s a circle of what experts know, I may take up a few dots within it.

In a few areas, I know my circle is pretty full.

The danger is when I’m in a circle where I’m actually a dot, but think I’m more. Those are the circles we are bad decisions are made and it will consequences happen. And the more confident I feel, the more tragic the outcome.

The worst feeling is finding out how little I actually know, but it’s the best way to learning what I need.

The trick, of course, is accepting I don’t know as much as I think I do… or that maybe, the circle of competence has changed and what I had is no longer useful.

It’s something I think about quite often as any study into the history of religions always show how fluid they’ve been. They don’t quite adapt, but they do cycle: tradition, conflict, reaction, new tradition.

Sometimes that conflict is with society and sometimes it’s within itself. It’s usually a mix of both.

Right now, we are on the precise of the reaction and new tradition part of the cycle. The conflict that’s been happening is a heavy dose of society and internal—specifically, the mass education of those within who are not some form of clergy.

The reactions are forming at various seams within traditions, resulting in a splintering that can only be described as a window whose minor cracks have exploded outwards.

In other words, people are pissed and they’re taking matters into their own hands.

I don’t see this as an end to Religion any more than the Internet killing the music industry. Obviously the music industry transformed (no judgement on whether it’s been positive or negative), but artists are still creating.

What I would like to see is less of a partisan attachment to a particular thread of tradition and a move towards conversation that will push us all forward.

What I would hate is further silos.

The question is how do we ensure the conversation can happen?

There’s self reflection and there’s honest reflection.

The first is easy to come by as it’s what most people consider an honest reflection, as evidenced by the array of social media posts to put up an opinion.

Dig deeper and most of these, including many private journal entries, are still carefully curated presentations of ego. Seeing your thoughts and writing is still seeing a reflection of yourself and the easiest person to fool… is us.

It’s a self-preservation mechanism.

What we really need is honesty.

And that can only come if you’re ready to hear it from others—or ourselves.

Most times, we need both.

This past week has been a doozy as I received my second vaccine dose (yes!) and then dealt with some harsh side-effects. I spent a few days, as my wife so brilliantly coined, “parenting from the couch.”

Oddly enough, I did more walking than ever as I was told the constant movement helps.

However, it also gave me time to dive deep into some new literature that examines whether the rapid communication of today’s business world has actually helped or hindered real work. It wasn’t so much the main arguments that intrigued me, but the off-beat notes.

For instance, the author’s grandfather, who was a professor, wrote books and papers by hand on yellow legal pads, then handed them in to be typed up and submitted. We think we’re in a better place now because we can type, edit and submit ourselves in an instant, but that little tidbit had me wondering how much time is actually spent mucking around on devices rather than doing real work.

Or the sheer amount of time I spend writing emails to parents who message me, only to erase them and call them on the phone as it’s much more efficient.

Or even consider the office and the façade of busywork, only to realize not a whole lot got accomplished at the end of the day. However, because it looked like work, it goes unquestioned.

Or how much of our attention is hijacked when we have to do some difficult problem solving, or how resistant we are to diving deeply into something and resort back to something shallow (“Let me just send this email.”)

It seems we live in a time where it’s much easier to pretend to do work because we haven’t learned how to leverage the great tools at our disposal. Mainly, the strengths of people and utilizing them in the best way.