14 | Honoring in Failure

Read the lesson.

Welcome back.

You can't truly know your worth as a human being until you've been in an environment where you fail at something—and are still honored despite that failure.

I remember a conversation I had with an amazing young leader I was intentionally investing in to take over my role.

She was highly motivated to learn, grow, be given responsibility and meet expectations.

I had chosen her for specific reasons and truly believed she could take what I had built thus far and take it further.

One conversation has always really stuck with me. We were meeting in our office here in Huntington Beach, in our normal weekly 1-1, and we were spending a few minutes talking more about her personal development as a leader before we got into the nuts and bolts of the week ahead.

And she said this: "Sometimes I don't feel like I'm enough to be stepping into this role."

My gut reaction was to lean into high affirmation, encourage her that she was, that I believed in her or else I wouldn't have chosen her to take over.

But I gave it a second, and thought "Okay, is that true? Yes I believe in her, but it's not because of her current skillsets or capacity. It's because of her heart, her character, her desire to grow and learn."

And affirming her for what she's capable of now isn't actually true.

So I chose to say this:

I looked her in the eye and said, "You're not enough."

And I could tell that she was surprised,

And almost like her worst fear was being realized.

Which was kind of my goal.

Because here's my thought: if her entire life was being oriented around the goal of never failing, never allowing herself to miss any expectation, then she's not really a leader. That type of mindset is so tied up with trying to be perfect, with believing that you need to be perfect to belong, that type of mindset will create a culture that demands people to be perfect to belong.

And I had an honest moment with myself that maybe I was setting that type of culture.

So it was my job to course correct.

So I repeated again—

You're not enough for this job.

I know you're going to make mistakes in this role,

You won't be perfect.

But I still choose you.

I still choose to work with you every day right now.

I still choose you to be the leader that steps into my role to take it further than I could.

…

We continued to discuss further but I realized that I hadn't let her experience what we were talking about in theory.

To her, it was just a concept, but not her experiential reality.

…

Up until this moment, I had set her up to win, to never fail, to never have to figure anything out for herself,

And so she actually didn't experientially know that she COULD fail—and still belong,

And still be honored with just as much honor as when she carried perfect standing.

…

So it's not like I orchestrated a failure moment haha

But I was trying to look for a moment where my default of stepping in to help to ensure she didn't fail—could be replaced by letting her handle it—and possibly fail.

So there was one day later that week—where a project kind of popped up and instead of leaning in to help—I told her—you've got this one—go for it. Let me know how it goes.

And turns out—she went into that project thinking I might fail but let's do it anyways.

And THAT is the experience I wanted her to have.

Because here's everything that happened in that moment:

1. She finally got to experience being believed in and having full responsibility

2. She finally got to experience what owning possible failure feels like

And then maybe a month later—

She did something that was a missed expectation. And actually offended me.

I asked her to go on a walk with me and I told her that what she did was not acceptable,

My feedback did make her emotional,

And I told her that—

Hey I want you to know that what you did isn't okay with me and here's what I expect moving forward and here's why.

Also—I'm good with you feeling disappointed in your actions. Because I need you to care about this. And course correct and learn moving forward.

And lastly,

I want you to experience a moment—where you're NOT perfect. And you still belong.

You still belong right here next to me as one of my comrades and colleagues.

You still belong right here next to me as the leader you are.

…

And here's the deal, I'm going to make a mistake in your eyes, and you're going to talk to me about it, I'm going to care, and apologize, and course correct moving forward. That's how this relationship will work…

And to this day—we've had a strong connection that goes way deeper than the work we did together, because she leaned in with me, we experienced what honor looks like in leadership when missed expectations and failures happen.

…

There's something about experiencing failure, and then still being honored that unlocks a truer understanding of honor itself.

There's something about experiencing failure, not being perfect, someone having a reason to dishonor you or disconnect from you—and still being invited into relationship and responsibility.

…

So let me ask this. How often do we as leaders, friends, coworkers, parents, try to protect those we love from failure.

And what is this costing us?

What happens if those around us experience perfection because they're perfect in our eyes—what is that teaching them? Yes, we can still say and tell them I love you no matter what.

But what if we leaned into moments where someone missed the mark and they felt what it's like to be exposed in that mess up, called up and still honored, believed in and loved.

Sweeping things under the rug, lowering standards is not helping build cultures of honor.

We as leaders in our home, in our friend group, in our work teams, have an opportunity to actually raise standards and expectations out of respect for those we love, care about and work with.

To create environments where we're going after important things, and doing so as human beings that have ebbs and flows in learning,

So let's say this: what we're looking for—from each other, from our kids, from our colleagues, from our friends is WHOLEHEARTEDNESS. Not perfection.

… and here's why

Far too often we equate perfection with belonging.

• There have been two distinct moments in my life where I have experienced the deepest honor I've ever experienced. And those moments didn't come after a big win, or success or accomplishment.

• They came after a confession. Both of these moments were after I chose to confess something I'd done that was so below the mark of my own standards and expectations—

• And I was ready to own the consequence of disconnection. I was ready to be fired. I was ready to be banned, I was ready to lose my job.

• So when I instead …. received love, honor, belief, encouragement, forgiveness, connection, a second chance.

• There's no book or podcast that could teach me more about being honored than that moment.

• When the full reality of my failure was exposed right in front of me and in front of others.

• And they still chose me.

• I know my worth as a human being MORE because of those moments of honor in failure.

And this is the opportunity we have in honoring others.

To honor them in their failure moments.

• What does it look like to allow our children to fail, to come to us with their mess ups, to not hide them, to actively expose them, because they know we're going to say, yes, that's not who you are, and it's okay to feel down, but let's discover what your next step can be—I forgive you and I believe in you

• What does it look like for us to be honest with our spouse or family members in an expectation they didn't hit for us—but do it with honor, love, respect.

• What does it look like for us to allow our employees to fail in a new project and then spend time with them after teaching, training, believing in them?

• It's almost like honor has a better chance at growing in moments of failure. Because it proves to the person who failed that they are still important, even when they're not perfect.

And here's where I'll end today.

In talking with Olympic athletes here's what they'll say when it comes to a culture of honor.

It's crazy how many text messages I get after a win, and how silent my phone stays after I lose. It's hard not to feel less valuable after a loss and I feel alone.

And here's what C-suite executives have to say about this:

It's crazy how many messages and phone calls and emails I get when I get the job.

And how absolutely silent everything goes after I lose my job.

Let's become the kinds of leaders that see the opportunity for honor in all the places.

In both the winning moments and the failure moments.

There's something powerful that happens when someone goes from living life trying to avoid failure to living a life knowing they're loved regardless.

If we develop people who don't dream because they're scared of getting it wrong,

we fail to help people to dream who actually might get it right.