Failing Into Excellence

Developing talent means delivering feedback. Not just any old feedback, but measurable, actionable, performance-based feedback. Failure is, and always has been, one of my favorite forms of feedback. Why? It’s clear and ruthlessly honest. It delivers only that which is essential in the moment. Did you meet the mark or not? Failure isn’t vague. It hurts. It forces you to confront the gap between your desire and your reality. 

Some of my most memorable triumphs in sport can be traced back to a lesson-learned from a pivotal, gut-wrenching failure:

• Not making the U16 National Team in 2000 led to making the U19 & U21 National Team in 2001. The Lesson: Work when No one is Watching. Let your work be your talk.
• Losing to Argentina in the Pan American Final in July of 2007 after being up a goal at half-time led to an undefeated National Championship in the Fall of 2007. The Lesson: Never Take a Lead or Moment for Granted. Things can change quickly. Be relentless and humble. Respect the game. 
• Not qualifying for the World Cup in 2010 led to beating Argentina (World #1 at the time) in the Pan American Final in 2011 to qualify for the Olympics. The Lesson: Your mind is your biggest obstacle and opportunity. Your body is capable of more than you think. 
• Finishing last at the 2012 Olympic Games led to a 4th place finish at the 2014 World Cup. The Lesson: Be In or Be out. Half-hearted commitment leads to half-hearted results. Have the hard conversations. 

Failure only works as a form of learning, though, if you set clear, measurable, timely, and ambitious goals. Vague goals lead to vague behaviors which leads to vague feedback and vague results. Vague is the enemy of great.

    Chasing excellence means setting clear targets and welcoming the failures that meet you along the way. It is okay for those failures to sting. Dawn Staley said it best when speaking on coaching Aliyah Boston: "You gotta love ‘em enough to let them hurt. That hurt doesn’t define her. It’s only going to make her better. Because you gotta do something to get better."

    Too often, we avoid the hurt that greatness requires. We live in fear of failure and that fear defines our actions. Failure doesn’t define you, it informs you. It informs you about where you've fallen short, where you are vulnerable, how you are beatable, how you can improve. Failure gives direction for your next right step. It redirects you to your intended destination. As Tony Bennet preached after the Virginia Cavaliers 2019 NCAA Championship, if you learn to use it right, failure will take you to a place you could have never gone otherwise.  It is a painful gift.

Failure, used well, inspires meaningful and deep change, not surface level change. I wonder though if we let ourselves fail enough to experience this deep change. What are we actually chasing? Do we chase and ache for excellence? Or do we chase status, perceived success and influence? Our world demands the constant perception of success. We expect coaches to get it right all the time. We expect athletes to make every team. We expect parents to have all the answers. We live in a world of vague yet exceptionally well-branded expectations. The expectation isn’t to be great. Nope. Our expectation is to never look bad, hide our shortcomings, never hurt, never fail, never get it wrong. Because we are so caught in the vague desire to look good, we never pursue greatness wholeheartedly. We always hold back, we set easy goals that look good when achieved, and because of this, we never experience the gift of failure. 

    Greatness requires failure.  Failure hurts. Yet in failure, we often remember the clear, vulnerable desire that drives us, and the gut-wrenching humility that our desire demands of us. Failure isn't something to be feared. Instead, I encourage us to lean-in to the learnings that failure offers us. Failure is empowering because it cuts through the layers of vagueness and gives absoluteness about where we stand in the moment.  Failure offers a gift; an opportunity to respond, rethink and reformat your approach to the task. It is an opportunity to strengthen your resolve and commitment to the thing you are chasing. To be great, we must be clear. We can't be vague. Vague is the enemy of great. So don’t be vague. Get clear about what you want. Define excellence. Chase it with measurable targets. Let the failure inform you. Fail your way into excellence.