0:10

Welcome to another episode of At the Table

0:12

with Patrick Lynchoni where everything we talk about

0:14

is related to organizational health and

0:16

the world of work. I'm your host, Pat Lynchoni. Got

0:19

the full crew here today, Cody, Beau, and

0:21

Tracy. I'm assuming they're doing fine. I'm not

0:23

even going to ask. Karen is

0:25

not sitting next to me. She's remote. She's

0:28

helping out. The glass remotely as well

0:30

producing. Cody, what are we

0:33

going to talk about today? The

0:35

luxury of failure. That's

0:37

right. I talked to the CEO of a company,

0:39

great guy. One of the, one of the deepest

0:41

chief executives I work with. I really liked this

0:44

guy. He said something

0:46

to me the other day. He said he was

0:48

talking about how he's made some mistakes in hiring,

0:50

but he's learned from it and, and it was

0:52

kind of inevitable, inevitable. And he said, you know,

0:54

Pat, luck, the luxury of failure

0:57

is survival. He says, if you

0:59

fail and make a mistake, but you

1:01

survive it, it's a blessing.

1:03

It's a way to learn that you probably couldn't

1:05

have learned. And I thought, what a great quote.

1:08

The luxury of failure is survival.

1:11

And, and this is not just one of those sayings that you

1:13

put on the wall. It's

1:15

really true that when something bad happens,

1:17

a setback or a disappointment,

1:20

it really does come down to how we

1:22

respond to it. Bill Bridges, God rest his

1:24

soul, who did transition management always. He talked

1:26

about this. It's not what happens to you

1:28

in life. It's how you respond to

1:31

it. And we want to talk about that from the

1:33

perspective of a leader who is

1:35

dealing with setbacks and how it really does

1:37

come down to how they choose to deal

1:39

with it. I think

1:41

it's funny too, Pat, when you almost

1:43

every quote that has success or failure

1:46

in it has somehow become more like

1:48

trivialized, like it almost feels like there's

1:50

so much in there because people have experienced

1:52

both success and failure, but you hear it

1:54

so often that it's sort of just, it

1:57

doesn't have the same impact. So for someone to say

1:59

it differently. And then for you

2:01

to actually dive into the concept, like, what does

2:03

that mean? Does survive it all? And what's the

2:05

luxury of that? And I think there's a lot

2:08

to unpack here. Absolutely.

2:10

And we learn from our personal lives

2:12

how this works, and it applies to

2:14

our organizational lives, too. It really is

2:17

a principle that's universal. And

2:19

so we want to talk, and then Bo, when we were

2:21

getting ready to record, Bo, you told a story from just

2:23

this morning. Yeah, we

2:25

were at a leadership team meeting. And

2:27

something that's been in my purview or

2:29

area of responsibility, padded, circled

2:31

in really big words on a whiteboard.

2:34

And so everything in me was like,

2:36

hey, we're doing that. Hey, we're doing that. Well,

2:39

and to cut to the

2:41

chase, generally, we weren't doing it well enough. And

2:44

it's, of course, tempting in the moment to

2:46

be defensive, but it's very hard to

2:48

learn and be defensive at the same time. And

2:51

what I think I was

2:53

able to do decently well is be able to say,

2:55

okay, it's possible that life has passed fail,

2:57

or it's possible that I have the opportunity to learn

2:59

something. And what I learned

3:02

is I just been approaching this a

3:04

different way than you wanted. I was doing it probably

3:06

reasonably fine the way that I thought you wanted. But

3:09

in the moment, everything in you screams,

3:12

defend yourself. Your honor is at

3:14

stake. Embarrassment is something you should

3:16

avoid at all costs. Does that make sense? And

3:19

that failure or that even

3:22

it's actually also a transition to say we were

3:24

comfortable with the way we were doing it. We

3:26

now have to be uncomfortable to learn a new

3:28

way to do it. Now, I might have just

3:31

had a bunch of words and made no sense

3:33

at all. But what were you? Go ahead. Yeah,

3:35

I want to give you I want to provide

3:37

a little context for this so that people understand.

3:39

So so we were literally in a meeting talking

3:42

about this thing. I wasn't even thinking

3:44

about this being your responsibility. I was saying we're not doing

3:46

very well in this area. And you

3:48

said, well, we're doing this. We're doing it. And

3:50

at one point, I finally said, no, no, no,

3:52

we're not doing this at all. And I remember

3:54

thinking, oh, wow. I could

3:56

see it on Zoom like Bo is a little

3:59

like, oh, I could. just tell in your mind, you were

4:01

like, am I failing at this? Does

4:03

he is he saying that I'm failing? And

4:05

that wasn't the point at all. But I could

4:07

tell I was like, oh, wow, this is going to

4:09

be one of those moments of truth where Bo is

4:11

going to be defensive, which you usually aren't, or you're

4:13

going to go, I just got to understand this better.

4:16

And I didn't even think about that. Then we start this

4:18

podcast, we start talking about and you're like, that happened to

4:20

me this morning, you said, I'm not

4:22

getting fired. Like your bank account is so

4:24

high, Bo. If you took a

4:27

nano inch an inch off of

4:29

your bank account, big deal,

4:31

but but you could have gone deeper into making

4:33

an excuse like, well, this is what we were

4:35

thinking. And this is what and you were just

4:37

like, no, screw it, let's just make this better.

4:39

And and it really is a matter of what's

4:41

your outlook in that moment? Am I

4:44

going to explain this away and protect myself? Or am

4:46

I going to welcome it and figure out a way

4:48

to get better. And I know that sounds like a

4:50

cliche, but it happens in so many parts of our

4:53

lives. Yeah, the and again,

4:55

just go back to what you said at

4:57

the beginning is life is so much about

4:59

not what happens, but how you respond to

5:01

what is happening. And that

5:03

is something we have ownership over. We

5:06

don't have ownership over everything that comes at us.

5:08

But we get enough we don't know, you know,

5:10

it's cliche, but you don't always get to choose

5:12

the cards, but you get to choose how you

5:14

play them, you get to choose your response. And

5:16

here's something I've learned is I

5:19

am every day choosing what kind of

5:21

person I'm becoming. And I'm

5:24

either becoming a person who

5:26

is defensive and rigid and

5:28

stubborn and wants credit, or

5:30

I am on my way to becoming more

5:32

and more the kind of person who is

5:35

open and teachable and humble. Does that make

5:37

sense? And absolutely don't Yeah, you

5:39

don't just wake up someday having become one

5:41

of those people. You are every day on

5:44

the path choosing which person you are becoming.

5:46

You know, it reminds me

5:48

of an old saying from a management expert named

5:50

Kenneth Rogers. And he said you got to know

5:52

when to hold them. And you got to know

5:54

when to walk away. No one

5:56

to run. No anyway, Cody, though, you I'm sorry, that

5:58

was a bad joke. But when you said what cards

6:00

you're playing and all that, it reminded me of that

6:02

song. Cody, you said something before

6:05

we started today, we were like, oh, we gotta get right

6:07

on the air because tell us that

6:09

euphemism or the story that you

6:11

heard about. Yes, I love

6:13

this topic. So I was

6:15

listening to, I wanna give proper credit, it

6:17

was this guy named Dr. Ben Hardy. He

6:19

was on Ed Mylitz podcast and they were

6:21

having a conversation about his professional

6:23

expertise is around identity and framing and some

6:26

of those things. And so he had said

6:28

this thing that I feel like we

6:30

need to go deeper on as a species. I think

6:33

there's so much packed into this

6:35

phrase. But he said, the really unique

6:37

thing about being a human being is this,

6:39

is that every experience that

6:41

we have is either an asset

6:44

or a liability. And

6:46

the unique thing about being human is you

6:48

get to decide. So

6:51

you have this experience, in the leaders

6:53

experience, you're like, oh, I hired

6:56

the wrong CFO or something

6:58

happened early in a relationship

7:00

or something went wrong. And

7:03

you either interpret that as an asset, I'm

7:05

gonna learn from that thing, I'm gonna get

7:07

better, it's gonna make me stronger or a

7:09

liability and you get to choose. And I

7:12

think that what is so unique is so

7:14

many people don't know that you get to

7:16

choose. But that leader that you talked about

7:18

was like, hey, I could actually take one

7:20

of two pass here. I could say, man,

7:23

I'll never hire another CFO. That was

7:26

too much stress, too much turmoil, and

7:29

you choose that it's a liability, as

7:31

opposed to saying like, oh, I'm gonna learn from that.

7:33

And in fact, I'm gonna learn from three of those

7:35

mistakes and I'm gonna continue to get better and better

7:38

and better. Yeah, it's such a

7:40

good example. And it's like, it gets

7:42

down to like, am I gonna feel guilty or ashamed

7:44

or am I gonna go, hey, that's the only way

7:46

I could have learned that. And

7:49

it is, man, if every one

7:51

of our clients that we've worked with over the

7:53

years could understand that, it's the difference between a

7:55

little dip in the upward curve

7:58

leading to something getting greater or being the... the

8:00

beginning of it going down. So

8:02

Pat, I would actually challenge you and

8:05

say that most people understand it. They

8:08

just, it's hard to put into practice.

8:10

So what makes this so hard? You

8:13

know, it's one of those things like so many other

8:15

things in life. It's about remembering it in that moment.

8:17

I mean, you can see it on a poster or

8:19

read it in a book or hear it on a

8:21

podcast and go, yeah, that's true. But the next time

8:24

something bad happens where you go, Oh, I didn't want

8:26

this to happen. I don't like that it's happening. It

8:28

kind of sucks. Okay.

8:32

Well, how am I going to turn this into an asset?

8:34

And so it's not about knowing it. It's about

8:37

knowing it in the moment when you need to

8:39

know it. So is there like a

8:41

tip or trick you would have for someone because

8:43

that's hard? Is it is it like a pause?

8:46

What do you do? I think

8:49

I would write it down someplace where I could see it.

8:52

And I think I would socialize it among all

8:54

of my team members so that when we see

8:56

somebody go through something, and it's not just at

8:58

work, it could be something personal and

9:01

go, Hey, that you're bummed about that. I

9:03

totally get that. And you got to feel

9:05

those feelings and acknowledge that. But you realize

9:07

buried here in the setback is

9:09

an opportunity if you want to find it. As

9:12

Cody said in a recent podcast, you know, there's a pony

9:14

in there somewhere. But in this case, there

9:16

really is there's a pony in there. I

9:19

have something that I thought about when you asked that

9:21

question, Tracy, that my friend Richard Fagel and taught me

9:24

years ago. And I think he wrote about

9:26

it in his book, which I feel the need to credit

9:28

him, especially because Cody just credited somebody. So I guess we're

9:30

doing that thing where we give people credit for their quotes.

9:32

Now, this is just another version

9:34

of you saying that I only listen to

9:36

podcasts and you read actual books. That's all

9:38

you're doing. My

9:41

friend Richard, I was in a difficult situation

9:44

and was trying to figure

9:46

out what's my part to play in this and honestly, probably trying to

9:48

do a little bit of blaming. And he

9:50

said, Bo, in every situation in your life, every

9:53

situation in your life, you have either caused

9:55

it, participated in it or allowed

9:57

it. And that was really

9:59

helpful to me. me of even the

10:01

situation today. It's easy to be like,

10:03

Oh, I didn't, I didn't create that, or I might

10:05

not have created it. But I

10:07

participated in it, or I allowed it. And

10:10

whatever family drama is going on at home right

10:12

now, I might not have caused it. But I've

10:14

allowed it. Does that make sense? So just stepping

10:16

into that, you know what? I'm

10:19

an owner, I get to own, I

10:21

have helped create how we got here,

10:23

I've allowed it. And I

10:25

also have some ownership in what we do

10:27

moving forward. And I just

10:29

think that mindset helps me get

10:32

it helps me not believe the

10:34

excuses that I'm a victim, or

10:36

not believe the lie that's tempting to tell

10:38

yourself that like, life is just happening to

10:40

you. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

10:42

In fact, so I'm gonna get back to Tracy's point,

10:45

Bo, and say this, write down on a whiteboard or

10:47

on a piece of paper and tape it to your

10:49

desk. I don't care. It doesn't have to be elegant.

10:51

In fact, it shouldn't be just, I

10:53

will choose to find

10:56

opportunity in my setbacks.

10:59

And it has to be I will choose because it's

11:02

not about will there be one there there always is,

11:04

but if you don't look for it, you're

11:06

not going to find that. So you

11:08

have to make I love what you said, Cody, you're gonna

11:11

get you got to choose to find that. And

11:14

Karen mentioned beforehand, and is writing a

11:16

note here to the reframing ideas, like,

11:18

when something happens, you have an opportunity

11:21

to reframe it. And that's exactly that

11:23

is, is is this a

11:25

setback? Let me take a step back, evaluate

11:27

it, you know, on the podcast,

11:29

you know, Tracy, you asked for how do you

11:31

actually go about that? The host said, I will

11:34

literally sit there and think, does

11:36

this belief serve me? Like

11:38

this idea, this experience, this belief about the

11:41

experience? And if the answer is no, I

11:43

asked the question, what would I

11:45

have to believe about it for it to serve me?

11:47

You know, and then you think about it's

11:50

just reframing like you and you see this

11:52

in society and friends that we have and

11:54

relationships where, you know, you've had

11:56

people in your life where something very tragic happens

11:58

when they're young. And And it

12:01

can lead to wanting to frame it in a

12:03

way that I'm going to grow from this and

12:05

I'm going to become stronger and pursue growth. Or

12:09

that happened to me and I'm a victim and

12:11

that is the frame that they view the rest

12:13

of the world in. And

12:15

you know, we all have done the victim thing. You

12:18

know, so it's not like when you hear this

12:20

on a podcast or you read about it or you

12:22

think, oh, you've got it all figured out. Why am

12:24

I? No, we all are tempted to

12:26

do this. And I want to tell two stories about

12:28

my wife that relate to this. One

12:31

was from college. Before I

12:33

even really met my wife, my girlfriend, I would

12:35

went overseas and my girlfriend broke up with me.

12:38

Hard to believe that somebody would

12:40

do that, but it happened. And

12:42

I was really sad, right? And

12:45

it wasn't like I said, oh, well, there's

12:47

more fish in the sea. I mean, I

12:49

had to feel sad about it, but I

12:51

remember thinking, you know, better

12:54

to find out this now than

12:57

later. And I need to meet the

12:59

person that's everything that I want

13:01

to be in that they find that in me and I

13:03

find that in them. And that's how I

13:05

met my wife. And I remember this guy coming up to

13:07

me afterward and I knew him fairly well, not that well.

13:09

And he just said, hey, you know, you are so much

13:11

better suited for her than you were for her.

13:15

He knew both of them. He goes, it's really good

13:17

that you're dating her now. And that couldn't

13:19

have happened had I not been disappointed.

13:22

Fast forward in life to my wife, right

13:25

after we got married, she got

13:27

laid off from her job at

13:29

a company because she got the chicken pox.

13:33

Literally. We were going to like, should we sue them for that?

13:35

And it's like, nah, that would suck. She decided,

13:37

hey, I'm not going to work for a company anymore.

13:39

Did the Bill Bridges thing? How can I make this

13:41

work for me? I'm going to actually

13:43

start my own company doing training and consulting. Her

13:47

entire career changed because somebody laid her

13:49

off for a bad reason. And

13:51

now that my youngest is almost out of the house,

13:54

my wife is picking up that business again and she

13:57

would have never done that or had

13:59

that opportunity. had she not got

14:01

laid off. So this isn't just a euphemism,

14:03

it's something we actually have to act

14:05

on. And the next time in your

14:07

organization or your family, you should

14:09

have this conversation with anybody you live with or

14:12

work with. The next time something bad happens, that's

14:15

when you gotta pull out that card that says, what

14:17

am I gonna choose? I have a choice. I

14:20

can choose victimhood or I can choose

14:22

to make this better. That doesn't mean you don't

14:24

feel your feelings. It doesn't mean

14:26

you don't process those things. Because if

14:28

you don't do that, other bad

14:30

things happen. But you're not gonna give in

14:33

to thinking about it as just a setback

14:35

and just victimhood. And

14:38

I think it's interesting to bring back to

14:40

the conversation like, so this is the World

14:42

of Work podcast, Pat, at the table and

14:44

you started with sort of leadership and we

14:46

talked about it personally. But I

14:49

think this happens all the time at companies,

14:51

Pat. And in some ways, this idea of

14:53

framing something as an opportunity is

14:55

some of what we do in even

14:58

the thematic goal or the rallying cry.

15:00

It's like, this is a, hey, this

15:03

is an opportunity. Like today in a meeting, Pat,

15:05

you said, we need to operate as if we

15:07

would go out of business if we didn't do

15:09

XYZ. Because so it's

15:11

even a framing of importance and

15:13

urgency in your business. So it doesn't have to necessarily

15:16

be a setback of a bad hire.

15:18

You can actually take this opportunity to

15:20

say, let's frame up what the next

15:23

six months of our business looks like

15:25

so that we can better ourselves in

15:27

that next timetable as opposed to just

15:29

sort of do business as usual. You

15:32

know, I was just thinking about this today. I'll

15:34

tell you, I was at church and I remember

15:36

thinking, when I get sad,

15:39

it either brings me closer to God

15:41

or further away. And I

15:44

thought about it today because we all experienced sadness.

15:46

And I thought, oh my gosh, oh

15:48

my God, I am actually

15:51

better for the times I've suffered because

15:54

it made me go, okay, God, I need you.

15:57

And I thought about this today. I thought if I

15:59

had never had those. I might think oh I can

16:01

do this on my own and and

16:03

companies do this all the time too It's like oh

16:05

we missed our number and that

16:07

might be the very incentive they need

16:11

to say We got to rethink this

16:14

We need a partner. I need external help

16:16

I need something else and you will look back

16:19

and say had things gone. Well, we might have

16:21

settled and thought we're fine

16:23

and so sometimes I think

16:25

what we have to realize is Success

16:28

at a certain degree might actually make

16:30

us less open to the help we

16:32

need and So

16:34

when something doesn't go well, maybe

16:37

that's you being reminded that we need to

16:39

look for help Yeah,

16:41

failure is a great opportunity for

16:43

diagnosis Even when something doesn't

16:46

go well, it leads more naturally to

16:48

the opportunity to say let's see

16:50

if we can name What didn't go well in

16:52

the story we told earlier it was the what

16:54

didn't go well is I was not doing the

16:56

work to Understand what Pat wanted but in a

16:59

company setting if a product doesn't go well or

17:01

a higher doesn't go well it's an

17:03

opportunity to kind of set that on the shelf and

17:06

look as specifically as you can and then

17:09

learning happens growth is able to happen out

17:11

of that rather than just Dismissing

17:13

it and trying not to look over there. I think

17:15

so much of this is a fear

17:18

of how failure Reflects on

17:20

our identity that makes us unwilling

17:22

to be able to look over there and do that

17:24

work. I agree I was just thinking about

17:26

and I want to the the CEO's name

17:28

is Caleb because I just want to I

17:30

know he doesn't want me to say who he is But great guy. He

17:33

said survival is the luxury of failure. I think

17:35

I would say that mediocrity

17:38

might be the curse of Mild

17:40

success or complacency complacency is

17:43

the curse of

17:45

mild success and

17:47

that is Just getting

17:49

by might be the very thing that makes you

17:51

think we don't need to change and

17:54

a little bit of failure And struggle

17:56

might very well be but but

17:58

not the kind that crushes your business or

18:01

makes it so you can't go on. But that really

18:03

is a blessing if we choose to look at it

18:05

that way. And I think you can look back in

18:07

your life and go, hey, you know, a little bit

18:10

more, had I got punished for doing that, I might

18:12

have learned it sooner. You

18:14

know, sometimes we go, whoa, I

18:16

cut corners there, I didn't do a very good job and

18:18

I didn't, we barely succeeded. And

18:21

it's like, sometimes we should say, oh, bummer,

18:23

we didn't learn a lesson we needed to

18:25

learn. I think

18:27

it's our buddy, John Gordon, who says there's

18:29

really only two options, you win or you

18:31

learn. And if you have

18:33

that mindset, you know, that it's just, oh,

18:35

hey, the only other option besides winning is

18:37

learning. That's a great way of viewing any

18:39

pickups in your business. Oh, wow.

18:42

That would have been a great title for this podcast.

18:44

You win or you learn. But

18:46

John Gordon, go on, buy his books. He's awesome.

18:49

Okay. I think we talked about this. This

18:51

is great. I really appreciate this. Unpaid

18:54

ad. Before the unpaid ad,

18:56

Pat, we have an announcement to make

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about a discount we're running. That's

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right. It's coming up Super Bowl

19:03

weekend. And many of our

19:05

employees are big 49ers fans, you know,

19:07

and so we're going to have a

19:09

sale. If the 49ers win this weekend,

19:12

there will be 49% off

19:14

all of our assessments, our working

19:16

genius and our team assessment

19:19

for the five dysfunctions, the five. So

19:22

the team assessment and the working genius will be 49% off.

19:25

This is a huge sale if the 49ers win. And

19:29

if you go into the show notes of this

19:32

episode, you will find the code that you're going to put

19:34

in to get that 49% discount. And

19:37

it will last for 49 hours afterward. And

19:40

I'm just glad to say that we're not 76ers fans,

19:42

because that would mean a 76% discount if

19:45

they won the NBA championship. And that would be

19:48

too much. But so a 49% discount if the

19:50

49ers win this weekend. And that's good for Chiefs

19:52

fans too. You know, anybody can get that. So

19:55

we just wanted to announce that and let you

19:57

know that we have plans for a big sale.

20:00

If things go well on monday, then

20:02

we'll yeah, we'll put the code in the

20:04

show notes On monday. We'll

20:06

also send a note to everybody and if the

20:09

49ers don't win Then our products

20:11

will be 49 more starting on

20:13

monday. There you go. Then we're gonna do it. We're

20:15

just gonna Go the other way I

20:18

guess we should do something. I don't know what we should

20:20

do. We'll have to we'll send this podcast all the 49ers

20:22

to say Hey, this

20:24

isn't necessarily a setback. You can embrace the

20:26

luxury of failure. Okay, that's right That's right,

20:29

whether it's the chiefs or the 49ers because

20:31

we all struggle. Hey, what's our unpaid

20:33

ad today? That's our paid ad kind

20:35

of what's our unpaid ad? We

20:37

take turns and cody and I did not decide if he's

20:39

doing it or i'm doing it cody if you don't know

20:41

i'm doing it Okay, so my wife is trying to get

20:43

me to eat healthier Which I

20:45

don't exactly know why she said it's better to eat

20:48

fewer calories And so i've

20:50

been eating more salads. Okay, so let

20:52

me tell you the unpaid ad today

20:54

is for croutons Which are the redemptive

20:56

quality of a salad is a great

20:58

crouton. Okay They just bury little bits

21:00

of garlic bread in your

21:02

salad for you and it makes salad

21:05

infinitely better. Okay croutons That's

21:08

controversial. Wow. I can just see all the

21:10

I can see the email lighting up right

21:12

now all the anti-crouton people I've

21:15

actually got a business idea if somebody wants to hit

21:17

me up for this We live in utah and I

21:19

think somebody should make croutons for utons in the little

21:22

shape of the state of utah. Okay So

21:24

three ideas new idea coming at

21:26

you croutons

21:31

c-r-u-t-a-h-n-s So

21:34

croutons nice don't you guys you're an i-g.

21:36

Aren't they fantastic? If

21:38

they're too hard, it's kind of hard on my teeth to be

21:40

quite honest, but i'll be honest. I don't need a lot of

21:42

salads so Cody

21:46

was gonna do his ad on steak

21:49

snacks, right As

21:53

a snack that's his new thing

21:56

That would fly in

21:58

the face of of beau's wife to get

22:00

Bo to eat more healthy. All right,

22:02

go out and get some croutons in the shape of

22:04

Utah. I love it. Hey, thanks

22:06

for joining us on the podcast. We will look forward

22:09

to talking to you next time on At the Table.

22:11

God bless.