Tag: Failure

Nobody Wins

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

Pull the curtain back a little on anyone and you will see the truth. The show on the stage of their life may look amazing. It’s shiny, clean, tight and in sync. Boy, what a performance.

But behind the scenes it’s another story. What happens back of stage is vastly different from what is on show.

If something looks too good to be true, then it probably is. Like Father Richard Rohr said, “Nobody wins. We all pretend.”

Nobody has the perfect life. Nobody has the perfect family. Nobody has the perfect job. Nobody is happy all the time. We are all pretending.

This is great news because it allows you and me to be kind to ourselves when things are tough. When things aren’t perfect. When we fall short of our hopes. When we let ourselves down by not being who we wish we were. When we fail.

It also means that you don’t have to pretend. Be kind to yourself and embrace who you are right now, in this moment.

Also, what happens back of stage always seeps to the front of stage eventually. Our reality will overcome our pretend. So, we can stop (or at least slow down) the pretend and live more in the reality.

Experience = Overconfidence

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Expertise is worth its weight in gold.

But overconfidence will kill you eventually.

Risky behaviour might pay off once or twice or even more, but eventually all of your chickens will come home to roost.

‘Experience is making the same mistake over and over again, only with greater confidence.’ (Michael Lewis quoting Carter Mecher)

Or as Nassim Taleb puts it, when talking about the attribution bias, ‘You attribute your success to skills but your failures to randomness’.

Statistically, someone is bound to succeed through risk taking and luck, just as someone else is bound to fail miserably through taking the exact same risks and having bad luck.

We live in a wicked world with complex problems, and we behave as if we live in a kind world, with simple problems. Generally, it seems to work for us when things are stable, but stability is never guaranteed and there are occasions when everything gets disrupted. (They seem to be happening semi-often at the moment).

If you’re environment is telling you that you are great at something, and paying you handsomely to do that thing, you will begin to believe that you are great at it and deserve to be paid well for doing it. But what if you are not actually great at it? What if it is just a matter of luck that has landed you in a place that has made things fall in such a way that it doesn’t matter what you do everything works well for you…until it doesn’t?

The answer is humility. Recognising that you could be wrong about something. About anything. Entertaining that thought, even just for a moment is an act of generosity to you and those around you.

If Carbs can be complex, why can’t I?

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

Simple carbohydrates can be broken down quickly by the body and used as energy, leading to a spike in energy levels.

Complex carbohydrates take longer for the body to break down and used as energy and are released gradually. Both can be useful.

Simple Carbs can be found in processed and refined sugars.

Complex carbs can be found in fruit and milk products.

That’s the layman’s definition of complex carbs, you know, the explanation that I can understand.

So, if carbohydrates can be complex, why can’t I?

People are more complex than carbohydrates, dramatically so. So why do we continue to fit people into categories, or groups, or profiles?

I can be both shallow and deep, both serious and funny, both charming and offensive, both loving and a jerk, and everything else in between. Certainly I try to spend most of my time in the more positive areas of character but I’m not great all the time. Sometimes I make mistakes, I say the wrong thing, I am thoughtless in my actions, I am selfish. If you have any remnants of self awareness as you are reading this you will know that you are the same, which makes it more important that we provide grace to those around us and recognise that people, like carbohydrates, can be complex.

Let’s not write someone off because they said or did the wrong thing once – give them grace and boundaries, and invite them to try again.

Give Yourself a Break

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

It is exhausting. Keeping tabs on people, making sure they are behaving themselves and not doing something that they shouldn’t be.

I’m not talking about parenting. I’m talking about monitoring the behaviour of your friends and family. Because if you aren’t there looking over their shoulder to keep them on the straight and narrow, then who will?

It may sound ridiculous, but it is easy enough to find ourselves in that space, even if it is just for a little while. We watch other people’s lives as spectators, seeing where and how they fall short, and not living up to what they hoped for. When they don’t reach their dreams or achieve their goals, failing in the process, we secretly (or not so secretly) judge them from the safety of the sidelines.

Judging other people’s behaviour can feel good in the moment, but it is exhausting. Partly because you have to keep track of them, but also you need to ensure that you don’t act in the same way so that when you judge, you can feel ‘morally superior’.

I’m encouraging you to give yourself a break from that. Take some time away from it, because here is what I have discovered…

We judge because we are afraid. The mistakes that we fear making are the areas in which we are the most judgemental of others. This leads to inaction and stagnation.

So, lay off other people and face your fear. Try that thing you have been afraid to say out loud. It is such a better use of time and energy, and it may just lead to something amazing.