Episode 8 - FINDING OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH IN FAILURE

In this episode we consider the power of the Opportunity Advantage as a tool for leveraging our failures in order to achieve collective growth and create the world we want and deserve.

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Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In this episode, we consider the power of the Opportunity Advantage as a tool for leveraging failure in order to achieve collective growth and create the world we want and deserve. Today I thought that I would, share some reflections on the topic of failure and the way we tend to react to our perceived failures and what alternative strategies we can adopt and alternative perspectives. When we look at our world today, we're confronted, of course, by twin global challenges and more COVID 19 to be specific the global economic crisis, but really also climate change, which is, which I think of as the second major slow rolling global crisis that is going to wreak absolute havoc in our lives. We can't help but notice, if we're alert and vigilant, that our leaders and societies are spectacularly failing in addressing both the pandemic and climate change in ways that are swift and effective and meaningful. As a result we are getting very disillusioned. We're getting hopeless and helpless, and we feel that we're only going downhill from here. The question is, why do we feel this way? I find this a fruitful area of investigation. As I reflect on it, I've come up with a couple of reasons that really stand out to me. The first reason is that we tend to define success as the realization of a particular outcome or a particular goal we have. In this instance, when it comes to COVID, the goal is to speedily and effectively squash the virus so that we can all get back to living the way we have always lived before and the ways in which we're accustomed to being. Because it's been such a huge inconvenience, not to mention the tremendous pain and suffering that it has wrought. So we're very attached to a certain outcome. The definition of success, I propose, is one of the things that gets in our way and causes us to be disillusioned, because when we don't see that outcome, then we get very disappointed and then we sink into depression, disappointment, dispondency, and anxiety and fear sets in. The second reason is that this problem of being attached to a particular outcome is compounded by the fact that we have a habit of linking our self worth, and in fact, our very identity of self, to the achievement of outcomes. Not only are we expecting a certain outcome and get very disappointed and upset when it doesn't happen, but it then affects how we think of ourselves, whether as individuals or as societies or in this instance, national societies and global society writ large, because it's been a massive failure to deal with the pandemic and to deal with climate change. This twin way of looking at life, which is to define success in a particular way as achieving a particular outcome, to get upset when it doesn't happen, and then to link our self worth and our self identity with it, really causes a lot of problems. When I think of this, an example that leaps to mind that we can relate to in our individual lives. By the way, I use these analogies, because I find that if you start with how we as individuals deal, then you can extrapolate and get a sense for how we as collective groups deal, because a bunch of individuals when they act a certain way or have a certain view or a certain mindset that lead to certain habits, create a particular culture either locally, nationally or internationally. The example here is the individual who applies for a job and is really excited about it. Let's say it's a young fella, age 28 to 30. Has set his heart on being hired at this job and has basically planned out his whole life based on this being successful, because he thinks he's a shoe-in and he thinks, "Oh my gosh, once I get this job, I can then propose to the love of my life. We can buy this house together." He's got this whole life plan. And then we have the kids and the vacation home and so on. So when he finds out that he indeed has not been hired, not only is his plan thrown off course, but his dreams are absolutely shattered. His self worth disintegrates, and he's left feeling hopeless, helpless, and despondent, and then starts beating himself up. This is basically what we do as groups and as society. This is what basically people around the world, all of us, I think, are experiencing, regardless of where we live. Let me know in the comments if this is not true for you or if you have experienced this. We're finding this with respect to COVID. We're telling ourselves, "Oh my gosh, we're on a downward slide from which we'll never recover. Life will never be the same again." Not only won't it be the same, we envision it being better. We envision this not being the same as being, "It's going to be a lot worse than it ever was before." There's no hope for the world going forward. Our future is really dark. Really the best we can hope to do with both COVID and climate change is to mitigate the disasters we've unleashed, to tolerate them, adapt to them as best we can, and basically be in a mode of settling for what little is possible, because we're never gonna have the world we really want and the world we deserve. This is the self talk that happens, that goes on for most of us and gets us into that paralytic state where we're so low on our energy and we're so hopeless that we're lethargic and don't feel like doing anything. Now in the spirit of the program, which is reimagining our world, What can we do to shift these mindsets? What might help to get us out of this despondency into a state of energy and motivation and excitement and hopefulness. What if we were to replace this old notion of, failure, with something else? Instead of viewing failure as abject defeat, what if we were to think of life as really being a journey, both for us as individuals and as a collective whole, in which the purpose is growth? That our focus, ...instead of becoming an outcome orientation that we have a growth orientation. This is actually quite a significant shift, because it involves understanding three things. What if we were to believe and understand that life is about essentially three things? Developing an increasing insight and understanding into our purpose, into why we were created, why we're here in the first place, what are we here to do. Secondly, that our purpose here is to develop certain qualities of character. And thirdly, that we're here to utilize certain gifts, unique abilities, and strengths that every single one of us is born with, to utilize those in service and in contribution to those around us, to our families, to our cities, to our neighborhoods, to our nations, and to the human race as a whole. If that becomes our focus, which is a growth orientation as opposed to an outcome orientation, all of a sudden we start to shift the way we look at things like goals. Now goals are really important, because goals are a critical way, a mechanism by which we harness our energy and our intention in order to achieve continual and never ending improvement in life. The outcomes of the goals themselves aren't as important as the fact that we're striving, that we're continually growing. Sometimes we move four steps forward and three steps back, and that's okay because the overall trajectory is one of growth. And we do this as a human race. You remember in one of the previous episodes, we talked about humanity as a collective whole moving through various developmental stages and currently in the throes of a turbulent adolescence, moving towards the goal, the overall growth, it's maturity, basically, which is the unification of humanity, which then is just the first stage of further growth because growth is endless. By adopting this growth mindset, we suddenly start to view goals and the idea of success of achieving these goals is very differently. We're not attached to outcomes. We also recognize that the curveballs we get in life, the unanticipated events, are not only okay, but they're actually sometimes really essential for us to be able to achieve the growth. Because we get stuck in certain ruts. We get on this train track and we think life's a train track and we just keep going. We get on at a station and get off at the terminus. And that's just not true. If life is about developing qualities, many of the qualities we develop as we've seen with the pandemic, of compassion, of patience, of detachment, of commitment. Of faith that things will turn out okay, of resilience, of generosity of spirit, helping others off or worse off than we are ourselves. All of these really are tested and come to the fore during these times of difficulty and turbulence and ferment. The other thing we start to realize is how often in life have you really wanted something. You've had a goal in mind. There's an outcome you really wanted. You work really hard for it. And as soon as you get it, the satisfaction lasts a day, maybe a couple of weeks, a month, maybe three months, but frankly dissipates no matter how big the win. You see this from the time we're in school and we work towards exams and we work hard and we get those A's, and then all of a sudden it feels like we're completely deflated. Or you get the promotion and initially it's exciting and it's more money and more recognition and so on, and within a couple of months, it becomes the norm, and we're then looking for the next big win. We're always dissatisfied, always looking for the next thing, never really contented with where we are and who we are. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that striving is bad. In fact, it's wonderful. We should all always be striving. But there's a balance between striving to achieve external goals and deep contentment, knowing who we are as human beings and how we're developing in terms of our qualities, our understanding of our purpose in life and really utilizing our strengths and capacities in service to others. That's the first shift: shifting from an outcome orientation to a growth orientation. The second shift that I propose we take that would help us tremendously to shift the way we feel and to energize us, is to stop viewing failure as defeat. But view it, in fact, as an opportunity to grow. It's what I call the Opportunity Advantage. It's merely an opportunity to grow. This stems from a principle that that I learned in the coaching that I do. It's actually a difficult one to wrap one's brain around initially, but the principle states that there are no mistakes. That really requires a lot of pondering, but what if for a moment you were to accept the fact that there are no mistakes in life? That what we call mistakes or failure are really opportunities to create certain awareness and to make new choices and to grow. A way I like to think about it is imagine that you're driving towards a destination and you plotted a direct route. But you get lost or you take the wrong turn. All that happens if you still believe in yourself and believe that you'll get there and keep trying, is that maybe you end up taking the scenic route. Maybe you end up seeing certain places and having certain experiences that, if you'd taken the straight route, you never would have had. And you thereby enrich your life. Maybe you develop more understanding of yourself and therefore able to be more compassionate with respect to others who may make mistakes, as we determine them to be. Imagine how our emotions would shift, if we started to believe that there are no mistakes and that all failure is really just an opportunity to do something better and to grow. We understand more about this from a well known Harvard trained psychologist, Sean Aker, who has pointed out something interesting that human beings do. He says that usually when we are in difficult situations or we feel like we've failed, we have a habit of doing one of two things. We either do more of the same, or we tend to take a few steps backwards. He says what very few people do, but which is actually the key to success, is to look for what he calls the third path or the third way. He says we should and I love this image, using the momentum caused by our temporary failure to catapult ourselves in a third direction that we usually have not thought about. This really requires being creative and making new choices. But it also requires being alert and not allowing ourselves to fall into depression immediately and disappointment so that we can see other choices. Now when I look at how we have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, we see a really good illustration of what he's talking about. Many countries have done more of the same during COVID. We tend to be very competitive. We think that life is based on the principle of competition and the whole business of nationalism really stems from this very competitive principle that we have espoused, right? Me first, my team, or my country has to win, even if it's at the expense of others. And we are now, we've even now coined a new phrase, vaccine nationalism. So with respect to the vaccine, nations trying to buy up the doses as many as they can in order to take care of their own folks first. This is one example of doing more of the same. In some countries, we've gone a step further and we have moved backwards from the advances that we've made. We've rolled them back. And I think of some countries like in Eastern Europe, where an authoritarian regime has made things more repressive within the country. The leader of a country has decided "You know what, in the name of a national emergency, I can pass whatever decree I want, regardless of what the judiciary or the legislature or anybody else says. Taking the opportunity to roll things back. Now, an example of the third path during COVID has really been what scientists have done. They have really role modeled for us what is possible if the world community comes together and collaborates. If the watchword is collaboration and cooperation and consultation in lieu of competition and nationalism. It's because of their willingness not to look at national boundaries, but to cooperate and share information and work together tirelessly, that the world has been able to do something unprecedented, which is come up with vaccines to deal with the global pandemic in the shortest period of time ever, in 10 to 11 months. Usually they tell us it's about 10 years to really create a vaccine that's viable. So it's amazing what the human race is capable of when we create these shifts in mindsets. As Albert Einstein famously said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." That's so true. We really have to not just think out of the box, but we have to forget that the box even exists. We have to be so far removed from the box that a box isn't even a thing in our minds. The third shift that I propose we make is to think even beyond the fact that failure is an opportunity for growth. What if failure and the things that happen to us actually happen for us rather than to us. I take this phrase from Anthony Robbins, the famous coach and strategist and motivational speaker and so many things rolled in one, in which he says, "Life doesn't happen to you. It happens for you." That is such an empowering statement, because it takes us out of this feeling that we're victims and out of control and at the mercy of events and circumstances and just turns it, flips it on its head to say, wow, actually everything that's happening, not only is it not happening to us, but it's actually happening for us. In other words it's to our advantage. Others have talked about this as looking for the gift in the hand of every problem that comes. So every problem comes bearing a gift in its hand. And our job is to look for that gift. To quote one of my favorite mentors, Sunny Dawn Johnston, these are blessons". The word blessing and lessons mixed together "blessons". I love that word. I think she got it from one of her friends. I share it with you, because these are all great tools we can use when we start to get despondent to remind ourselves that life is happening for us rather than to us. This will be the wrap up. What if we look at what has actually been happening during the COVID pandemic. We know about the suffering and I don't minimize it, but we all know what's going on. But very few of us take a lot of time to reflect on the upsides and what has COVID been doing for us? What is climate change doing for us? Number one, what if COVID is there to demonstrate to us and to convince us that our systems are actually broken? Because frankly, until we recognize the fact that the way we've been doing business, whether in the economic sphere or the social sphere of political or environmental, just isn't working that we'll be willing to scrap those systems and start to think of something new. As long as we think of systems, basically, it may not be great, but it's working for us. We're not gonna make any changes. So that's the first way it's been working for us. The second way it's been working for us, I propose, is that it has heightened our awareness of our interconnectedness. We had a whole episode on this, and I'm not going to go into it, but a recent study, which I found really interesting, that was reported in the media is that if we fail to vaccinate the people in developing countries, if we deprive them of vaccines, the economic impact of such a decision will be as severe on the developed world, as we call them, as it is on the developing countries, because we're so interconnected, right? Even if we're driven initially by a sense of self interest, we all basically sink or swim together. This awareness of our oneness is starting to become very clear on many different fronts. The third thing that we're learning is something I touched on, to replace the habit of competition with collaboration. Scientists I think have really done a wonderful job taking the lead and role modeling for us how we can do things collaboratively and the advantages and benefits to all of humanity if we were to take that approach. The fourth is to make us realize that there are really certain fundamental values or principles that we all cherish, regardless of whether you live in Syria or Vietnam or you're Rohingya or Uyghur or Han Chinese or live in Africa or Latin America or United States. We all want. certain basic things. We want to have access to health care. We want good education for our children. We want to be safe and not shot at. We want to drink clean water, have access to food, and on. These are some of the basics that all human beings want, and we want to live lives of purpose and meaning. The fifth thing I think we're learning is that we need to create new systems of governance at all levels, but also especially at the global level. Collective decision making and enforcement institutions that allow us to tackle collective problems like climate change and COVID, and to make those institutions really represent the peoples of the world, that there be democratic representation in those assemblies and in those institutions. Another thing that fascinates me that's happened is that COVID has shown us new ways of doing things, because we've been forced into it. Work. I was just talking to a member of my family who was saying that her husband has been working from home during the pandemic, one of the fortunate ones, but the amount of stress that he has lessened considerably, and it's wonderful for global warming because there's no commute involved, so less CO2 in the environment, more time with family, less stress. So he's planning, even once the pandemic ends, to continue working mostly from home and maybe going into the office a couple of days a week. We've also been thinking of different ways of revamping institutions, reconceptualizing what does policing, what should policing look like? In the United States, for instance, how can we do things differently that serves the interests of keeping a community safe and secure from crime, while also attending to the mental health problems, to the social problems, really helping communities along and providing other services and tools that communities need, not to mention, of course, making sure that our institutions are rid of the scourge of anti Black racism in this instance, in this country. One other thing that I find fascinating is that because of this pandemic, and now that it's winter in our area, I look at people walking outside. People are covered, they have hats on, they have their dark glasses on, they have a mask on, they're covered from head to toe, they have gloves on, so you basically can't see their bodies. There's so much less emphasis on physical appearance and beauty and fashion, and frankly, skin color. Most of the time you can't tell looking at someone what the color of their skin is. So what do we focus on instead? We look at their behavior. Are they kind? Are they generous? Are they courteous? We're looking at what makes each of us truly human, the qualities of the heart and of character, rather than the really superficial things that we're so used to focusing on. To me, this is one of the wonderful things COVID has been doing for us. The last thing I'll mention right now, though there are others, is that COVID has provided a wonderful opportunity to include people in conversations who otherwise wouldn't have a voice. I've attended a couple of conferences where before people would need to spend money flying in, paying for hotel costs, and paying for costs of registration. Now you don't need to have the means to do that. As long as you have a computer and internet connection, you can tune in from anywhere in the world. As a result, those conversations have been so enriched and we have the benefit of all these voices contributing. We have a diversity of opinions and experiences, and so all of us are benefiting from it. And those folks are starting to feel like they have a say in how this body of thought in the world, this evolving body of thought is being crafted and being moved along. Okay I think that's basically it in terms of my comments. Again, if you like the ideas that we're sharing in this series, please know that there is a book entitled The Alchemy of Peace: Six Essential Shifts in Mindsets and Habits that has just come out and is available on Amazon everywhere in the world, or you can just go to our website, CPGG.org, to the publication section and find it there. Anyway, I hope you'll consider grabbing a copy and sharing news of it with your friends. And for now, I'm going to go to the comments. If you have any questions, feel free to put them in the comments, regardless of which platform you're tuning in on, YouTube or Facebook, or questions that you have. Thank you Kim Douglas for offering a summary. Question here. What steps might be necessary for building collective intention? And how might an intention transform into a mindset? We are made up of cultures, and communities are made up of a sum of various human beings. So collective intention is created. Actually, I think a collective shift in mindset maybe comes first, the way I conceive of it. As each of us as individuals shifts the way we start thinking about what's going on in the world and we share those insights with others, we start to create a collective shift in mindset, meaning very simply that more and more people start to conceive of things differently from the old ways they've conceived of things. That's why we do these things, like we have conversations, you have conversations when we get back to work at the water cooler, or on Zooms, or we get together with a friend, or go for a walk, and all these one on one interactions in which we share our new mindset is an invitation to others to consider shifting their mindset too. It's like offering a gift. At least you're holding a vision of a different way of looking at things. Once enough people have shifted their mindsets, so you have a collective shift in mindset from individual shifts of mindset, then you get to a point where a community very organically says, "Hey, we're starting to think about these things differently and look at the messes we're in. We need to shift habits." That's where intentions come in, because it's very hard to maintain old habits that don't serve us when we have a new way of perceiving things. Cause old mindsets lead to old habits and once we shift those mindsets or replace them with new empowering mindsets, then they lead to new habits. And really creating those new habits is where the intention comes. Again the book actually explains this in great detail, a step by step guide, but I hope for now that has helped. Good question here. What comes first regarding encouraging a world consultative body? First step is awareness. Simple awareness. "Hey, folks, look, some of our most intractable problems are global and collective in nature. Climate change, COVID 19," right? We're being hit in the face with these. The only way to solve a collective problem is through collective decision making. Oh wow, we're lacking the collective decision making mechanisms, a world consultative body, and beyond that, not just consultative, but a world legislative body that is able to consult and then actually pass binding international rules, allow us to decide, what kinds of energy can each country use, how much of it, to what extent, what other steps do we need to take? Should there be carbon taxation? Let's pour money into global research and development to find alternative renewable sources of energy and can quickly replace fossil fuels including natural gas, which is better than coal. Talking about it, and then getting people to really push their leaders, elect the kind of leaders. We talked about the importance of this. Once we change the way we think, we start to demand certain qualities in our leaders. We learn to demand that they take steps, that they be courageous, that they do the unpopular thing because it's the right thing to do for their people, that they're truthful and transparent and share information and bring us along. All these things that we discussed in the episode in which we covered the importance of electing fit leaders. So I think that's the first step. And the good news is that there are people around the world who are having a lot of discussions and conversations about creating a global consultative body. I was just part of a podcast with three other colleagues. It was hosted by the Young World Federalists out in Melbourne, Australia. Shout out to Daniel Blewett and Andreas Bummel was on there from Germany Democracy Without Borders and Chris Hamer, and I was representing the Center for Peace and Global Governance and the Citizens for Global Solutions. We were all talking about pathways to a world federal system and including a world parliament. It's exciting that these conversations are happening and more people are starting to come on board. Okay, I think that's it for the comments and questions. Take care. Bye bye. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.