Growth

When naming my blog, two things were important: a domain name that was available, and something that spoke to what I believed.  Thinking “what makes me, me” was a difficult task, because at the time,  it felt like a lingering question which constantly went unanswered.  It wasn’t clear why, but “Slowly Fantastic” just came to mind, and it seemed right, so I went with it.

Growing up, my parents taught me two things: 1.  Love and obey God  2.  You’re special and can do anything.  I was always so confident and driven by these two very solid ideas, and it seemed like success in sports and other things was something natural.  I didn’t realize that much of my success had to do with my parents providing me privilege, and that I was genetically blessed for sports.  When I transitioned from “winning” on the field into “winning” in the office, things became more complicated.  At first, my unusually high level of confidence was enough to propel me to the forefront of management attention, but as the tasks got more difficult, I would shut down in the face of failure.  I went through several jobs initially exceeding expectations, but eventually finding myself as being one of the least capable employees.  Eventually, I learned to try and keep a decent attitude when I failed and that helped me to be a pretty good worker overall.  However, there was a struggle inside, saying if I was special and could do anything, why wasn’t I doing something great?  Certainly, as someone who was born with the right stuff, my life journey should be one simpler than this, with success that came more readily.  What was I missing?  Why wasn’t I happy?

Despite the doubt, I was doing well, getting a good job at Microsoft which had seemed impossible to me a few years earlier.  I continued to manage a better attitude after failure, and instead of turning off, I was at least ignoring it and moving forward.  However, I still carried around the burden that I wasn’t winning at the highest level, and was just another loser in the crowd.  In other words, winning this awesome job at Microsoft, wasn’t enough for me to be happy, or at least make me feel like a winner, which surprised me.  A new interest sprouted to learn about great men, and to gain a perspective into what their life was like.  I read biographies: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Washington A Life by Ron Chernow, Einstein His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Bonhoeffer Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, Titan The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow, and more.  It was fascinating.  There was one apparent theme which stood out to me about all of these very different men; they all went through a massive amount of failure.  Countless times while reading, the realization came that had I been in the same position as the person being described, I would have quit or broken down.  I began to have a very powerful thought, what if massive amounts of failure was the price one paid to do great things?  Or even better, what if failure was the opportunity to get better?  Was self improvement about what one does with failure?  I quietly adopted this, but wasn’t ready to tell anyone that I was a failure and it helped me improve.  Being in a circle of successes, it was way too embarrassing.  Then I met Dr. Michael Gervais.

Microsoft was going through many changes under our new CEO Satya Nadella, and he had started talking about something called the growth mindset.  Employees had the opportunity to attend a “High Performance Culture” training event with Dr. Michael Gervais who worked with the Seattle Seahawks.  Excited to have the opportunity to learn from someone who obviously knew what it took to be great, I excitedly signed up.  The day of the event was intimidating since I knew there would be a room full of successful people, and really my greatest strength was failure.  Although I don’t remember the exact words, Michael asked us something like “If you want to be the best in the world, is it more important to win, or is it the process of competing?”.  Giving my answer, the idea of a growth mindset hadn’t really taken hold, and I said something to the effect of “they both matter”.  It surprised and slightly embarrassed me when Michael said “that’s a lazy answer”.  Michael explained that if we only care about winning, most of our lives would be depressing, because those winning moments aren’t really what we experience day to day.  Michael had also brought along world class Olympic athletes who described their daily grind, and how their mindset through failure is what actually brought them to the top.  It was truly thrilling to realize, that maybe my growth through failure was actually the right path.  We then worked on our personal philosophies and it was interesting trying to describe me in a couple of sentences.  As I thought about God, my wife, my daughter, and my goals, the idea of Slowly Fantastic came into focus.  I finally realized what it meant: through many failures, I am slowly becoming fantastic.  And that freed me to strive every day to live my philosophy “Love people.  Decide to be great.”

I followed up the workshop by listening to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Professor Jason M. Satterfield,  Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck, and regularly listen to Dr. Michael Gervais’ Finding Mastery podcast.  This reinforces what I’ve learned and provides even greater perspective.  Since I began following my philosophy with purpose, I can’t even begin to describe what an incredible experience my journey has been.  Growth is my new success, and I hope you join me on this path.

*This post was originally published Slowly Fantastic.