Unfair AdvantageSample

“Cry in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield” – Japanese Proverb

Think about the average daily tasks that you have in your life.

What does your schedule look like? What do you do at work? What is expected of you and your team, and what numbers or statistics are you expected to uphold?

Now imagine that you go into work tomorrow and are told that all of your tasks have been cut in half.

This is very similar to the concept of unfair advantages. Think about it like this:

You face adversity many times in life. Throughout many seasons in my personal as well as professional life, I have had to deal with adversity. I have had things added to my pile of “stuff-to-worry-about.” But the thing about resistance is that it only affects you for so long before it becomes commonplace. If you were told that you had to carry a 40 pound backpack everywhere you went, it would be difficult at first. You wouldn’t get around as easily or as quickly. You would probably be exhausted by the end of the day, until you get used to it. Once you’ve gotten used to it, the backpack no longer seems to matter. You just keep walking with it. Those 40 pounds feel lighter and lighter to the point in which they’re no longer there. The added weight is now part of your day.

But then one day, you take it off and you don’t pick it back up.

How is your daily life now that you’ve let go of the backpack?

That’s what failure does for us. 

Failure is a temporary weight that gets added to your shoulders until you are strong enough to move freely. Then, we let go of the failure and we come back stronger than ever. Failure and resistance are synonyms,  temporary forces that initially push against us, only to strengthen us later.

It’s an unfair advantage, and it belongs to those who have failed.

You see this in everyday life. 

Those who experience failure early in life tend to develop more grit. They are more resilient, because they’ve felt defeat before. They know the reality of losing and they know that they can’t be beaten unless they make the decision to give up.

Don't be afraid of failure, and when you do fail, fail forward.