After a lot of online research I merely found different archetypes of failure. I also found reasons for failure; complex simple, etc. Everyone talks about learning from failure, duh. I found all kinds of things, but not what I want to teach you here, that I just learned myself. What if you are describing your life in terms of its failures vs its successes, because you are guaranteed sympathy for your failures? What if by describing the failures you are literally inviting more failure? What if you are making yourself more depressed and therefore less motivated to work and be successful? What if you are literally not even seeing the opportunities, in your business, your health, and your relationships, because you are seeing nothing but the pitfalls?

What if everything I just proposed is all true? I dont know about you, but for me it is, and was. In spite of it all, I actually have been very successful in so many areas. Actually my whole life can be described as a series of successes, or failures. Its kind of like a positive or negative mindset. It is just oh so many things. This awakening happened when I was talking to my friend/coach David Ellzey. Sorry for the self referential stuff. I actually really dislike when others do it but I dont know how else to describe what it is and how it appeared in my life.

I was complaining about some serious challenges I was having with my new website design company that probably cost me over $100,000. I was composing an email to the people that designed it. They literally eliminated pages and all of the traffic they were getting from google even though they swore they had expert SEO people. David kept insisting that I was more complaining than trying to fix. I didnt get it. I actually started the phone call with one word “blech” I was so disgusted with the situation.

He continued to ask me to look behind each “thing” and what was underneath that, and where else in my life had that feeling or attitude been present. I realized it was a pervasive part of my life story. Whether it was running a successful business that I grew to 30 million a year or having a business that got sucked into a huge scandal for supplying the 3rd bid that took down the whole advertising industry in New York with us as a pretty much innocent third party collateral damage. Finally the floodgates in my mind opened up to a torrential flood of thoughts and memories collapsing from the present moment to childhood. Sometimes that is how the Sedona method of letting go works. I let go of describing all the “failures.” 

You actually know that thoughts are all connected so this is not that far fetched. Everything you see hear and read reminds you of something else, right? So letting go of wanting to be the “hero” that suffered these losses and prevailed was just eating up a lot of energy vs just fixing it and moving on. But like I said it was so much more. It was tied to a whole negative identity going back to my first cigarette when I was 12 years old. And I am sure you can relate at some point in your life to the “woe is me” for getting attention. Describing failure does get attention. Negative attention is addicting. Getting sympathy is both addicting and leaves you where you dont have to take chances to continue to be successful There are actually a lot of benefits to complaining.

I am overweight so I cant get a boyfriend or girlfriend. Cant do nothing about that can you? I have some insurmountable business challenges. I am in New York the economy sucks, Need I go on?

We have all done it. “You are not going to believe it, those Aholes kept me on hold for 60 minutes” ”oh thats awful we commiserate” Why did I even do that? Why wasnt I looking for alternative solutions? Why didnt I have my phone on speaker and barely notice it while I worked on something else? Did I want to keep track of how bad it was so that I could complain about it?

By the way I know you have never done that, right? You have never said, “you are not going to believe the amount of traffic I was in, it took me 2 hours to move 5 miles” right? That same trip could have been described in other ways. I have done both. I remember praying for traffic because I was listening to the greatest audio tape I have ever heard in my car. I remember trips where I deepened my relationship with the person in the car with me. I remember family trips that took forever that were the most fun I have had in my life. I am here to say there are alternatives and it is your choosing that makes it so. You too might be mired in what I am going to call the “adversity suffering hero archetype.”

I tried to look it up. Here is some great stuff on hero archetypes. Suffice it to say that all of life and movies and culture is about heroes. Whether it is batman superman Star Wars or Classic epic heroes like Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and Odysseus, or tragic heroes like Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet. Literally every good book or movie is the heroes adventure. He gets the girl, she gets the boy, he, she, they overcome adversity etc.

We have all been told and loved epic stories about heroes for thousands of years. The distinction I am making is that there is a potential trap. Some of you may be like I used to be. Letting go of the negative side of it was one of the greatest things I have ever done, and its gone.

Let me give you some more examples of what I am proposing is your potential gains vs losses if you identify with the tragic hero. So the tragic hero gets to complain, the real hero gets to win or figure out another path to victory. I am so happy to see the negative stories in my life completely collapse. Because I did overcome it all and I am still engaged in wining in all areas.

I no longer have time for failure. I no longer want to tell the stories of loss, only of success. It truly is a choice. I see everyone and everything in my life as a gift. I actually even feel more loving and grateful vs focusing on the ongoing and potential challenges. I cant help but praise all of the people in my life and the ones I am lucky enough to work with vs pointing out the challenges yet to be met. I am too busy looking for more opportunities.

PS there also might be something energetically about attracting failure. But you absolutely dont have to believe that at all. Logistically if you are too busy telling the story of loss, you probably are not reading that blurb on the internet or listening to that one more you tube or calling that one more friend that call that could serendipitously lead to that one more sale or multiple sales or the introduction to exactly who you needed to meet to date, or work with or cure your cancer. 

So we are literally back to square one. Do you want negative or positive approval? We have all received both in our lives. Some more than others. You get addicted to or accustomed to “approval” Dont get addicted to negative approval!

Dont get or seek any negative approval. You are not going to get high fives from everyone for landing the best partner or creating your first or 10th successful business. You are very likely to get jealousy and even lose friends and family Losing is the safer path. But DONT! its a terrible life to live that is tragically set for failure in every area. Its not easy because you do get the satisfaction of 100% guaranteed sympathy. Sympathy is a form of approval. Everyone loves to offer sympathetic love.