Failure A New Approach
Transcriber: Emanuela Rotunno
Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Hi, my name is DeOnna Britt.
You may know me as an attorney,
as an educator,
as a leader in the community,
but that’s not what we’re here
to talk about today.
We’re here to talk about failure,
which is not something
everyone wants to talk about.
In fact, if I had it my way,
I would hide all of my failures
under my bed, under the rug,
or I don’t know, in a closet.
But we’re going to take
a new approach to failure today.
I want you to think about the last time
you failed at something,
whether it was last year,
whether it was a few months ago,
or maybe you’re watching this
because you failed at something today.
We’re going to draw our power
from our failure.
We’re going to look at failure a new way.
OK, so let’s talk about a couple of ways
that we can draw power from failure:
One, when we think about failure,
the first thing
that we feel is pain, right?
Whether you’re reading your failure,
whether a conversation presents failure,
whether a business transaction
just did not work out, it’s a failure.
And in that moment, you’re going
to feel some pain, right?
And pain isn’t something that we enjoy.
But guess what? Pain can be a good thing.
And you may be saying,
“Well, that’s insane.
How could pain be a good thing?”
I mean, the last time I experienced pain,
it was a lump in my throat.
I mean, I couldn’t breathe
This thing - I mean, I remember
blinking back the tears
because I was so frustrated
with my failures.
And this just wasn’t one. It was failure
after failure after failure.
But guess what?
It turned out to be a good thing
because I realized
in my moments of failure,
whether it was in business,
academia, or in relationships,
that, at that moment, the pain that I felt
showed me that I was still alive,
that I still wanted something,
and I consider that to be a blessing.
It’s a good thing to feel pain,
to feel something
when you experience a failure.
So you just have to press through it.
I mean, two feet on the floor, get up,
push through your pain
to get through that failure -
and that may be the opposite
of what you typically do.
You typically may lie there
in that thing and just say,
“You know what? I’m just going
to sit here and wallow in it.”
But if you could do something new,
if you could have a different perspective
where you realize the pain
that you’re feeling is a good thing,
you’ll see that it doesn’t
last forever, right?
And even if the pain
is, in fact, painful and it hurts
and it manifests in your body, right?
Pain can affect your health, right,
when you’re emotionally in pain,
but again, it’s just showing
you that you’re alive
and that you’re still breathing
and that you’re connected
to what it is that you want.
When I think about failure, again,
there are so many different ways
that we can draw power.
There is power in our resilience,
the ability to get up again, right?
And in fact, that’s how some
of my peers describe me.
They say, you know what,
you are resilient.
You will get up over and over
and over and over again.
And that has to be your approach, right?
So whatever failure you’re picturing
in your mind right now, I assure you,
if you take one day, right,
if you take one day to just feel
the emotion of your disappointment,
of your failure, just feel that thing.
But if you could be resilient
and just get up one more time, right?
Just try it one more time,
you will surprise yourself and you will
realize that it doesn’t last always,
like the same trouble don’t last always.
So I’m picturing you right now, right?
You’re sitting on your bed,
You’re sitting on your couch,
you’re sitting in your chair,
and you’re thinking about that failure.
But I’m also picturing you getting up
tomorrow morning and trying again -
two feet on the floor, left and right,
standing up with square shoulders
and trying again.
There is so much power
if you could just be resilient.
That’s what I learned.
Third, there is power in love.
I bet you weren’t expecting me
to say that, right?
Because typically love and failure -
they don’t go together, right.
Failure typically is an isolated thing.
Your mind convinced you that you’re
the only one going through
what it is that you’re facing.
But if you could learn to love and draw
your power of love in that moment,
so you may be asking,
“Who do I love in this moment?”
Well, you’ve got to love yourself.
Yeah, whether you have to hug yourself,
if you’ve got to take
a mental health day and say,
“Hey, I’m going to go
do something to love on me.”
Maybe your love looks like forgiving
yourself for a bad decision,
for a bad outcome,
whatever it is that you’re calling
a failure in this moment.
Forgiving yourself
is a form of love, right?
And then I’ve also learned
in my failures to love others, right,
because sometimes we’re stuck
in our own emotions,
and we’re just thinking about how we feel.
But the more that I loved on others,
whether that was family or friends,
I saw that I could draw power
and using the power of love
in how I interact with people.
Finally, there’s power in giving, right,
and you may think, “Well, how can I give
to someone if I’m in a low place,
I don’t feel good,
I want to lay in my bed, right,
I don’t want to get up today.”
But I’m going to give to someone else.
I’ll share with you -
in some of my darkest times.
I decided I’m going to go volunteer
and this may shock you, right,
but I said, I’m going to go volunteer.
I’m going to find some children
that want to be where I am, right?
I’m going to find someone
that is going through something
that is a little bit more severe.
They would switch places
with me in a heartbeat.
Let me go give that person my time,
and that’s what volunteering looks like.
And guess what?
I mean, I even thought
what could I give this person?
I know it’s crazy, but I thought,
“What could I give this
person if I’m dealing with a failure?”
But wallowing in my bed wasn’t working
and complaining to my friends
was not working, right?
So I had to try something new.
So that something new
looks like finding a school,
finding a community organization,
getting up, two feet on the floor,
and finding someone
to give my time to as a volunteer.
Or maybe it was mentoring, right?
Finding folks to intern, to allow
to intern for me so that
I could store into them daily, even though
I’m still going through things, right?
Or perhaps it was educating
the community, right,
being a leader in the community,
no matter what I emotionally felt like.
And that’s how you have to look at this.
You have to decide who can I give to,
even though I am feeling a way
about what I’m facing,
the fact that I didn’t achieve
the goal that I wanted to, right?.
And I assure you that if you are able
to give in those moments
and press on and focus on someone else,
that happy hormone’s
going to kick in, right?
You’re going to feel good.
I can’t explain it to you.
You just have to feel this.
And then for that moment,
you will have an opportunity
to forget what you’re focusing on
and focus on someone else
and blessing their life.
And now you will have
the energy to be resilient,
to push through your pain,
to give love to someone else,
because now you have
concentrated on someone else.
So what I want you to do in this moment
is to think about how -
what will you do new
with your failure, right?
If you’re still in that place where you’re
feeling low or you’re feeling frustrated,
maybe it’s replaying
in your mind right now,
what will you do new?
Will you draw from the powers
that we talked about today:
the power of pain,
the power of resilience,
the power of love, the power of giving,
or will you find your own power?
Think about that for a while, and I hope
that tomorrow when the sun shines,
because one thing about the sun -
it’s going to shine tomorrow, right?
So when you get up tomorrow,
I hope that you find your power
and you’re able to push past,
surpass that failure,
so that you can find your own success.
Thank you.