Failure and Sculpting Individuality

We are destined to fail. As we grow up we become more knowledgeable of worldly events that only remind us how small of an impact we personally have in our universe. We learn more and more about people who have accomplished so much more in their lives and become a sort of ideal or blueprint to how we wish to lead our lives. The moment we have ideals, heroes, or idols we look up to and wish to one day be as great as they are, we will begin to carve a road of failure. This, however, is not a bad thing. Each and every one of us are different, with different concerns, levels of appreciation, how we go about getting things done, and which people or ideals we admire. This will then begin a process of becoming unique individuals from anyone else. For example, I will always look up to people such as John Wooden and Jack Daniels for their coaching pedagogy. My chances of becoming as successful as them or handling things just like them will be extremely slim to none. This is why I stated we are destined to fail. We are our own biggest critique and no matter how much other people tell us we have succeed, we have built up our ideals and heroes in our mind so high that we can never possibly amount to them.

This is what the greatest and most successful people do. They battle through knowing they have not achieved their dream and begin to sculpt their own individuality. By this I mean that although I may never coach Olympic level runners or coach teams to ten National Championships, I will sculpt my own path that demonstrates my unique individuality and ultimately show true creation. We must never be afraid of falling short of our ideals and heroes, we must only battle through and come to the realization that becoming ourselves is the single best accomplishment we will achieve and failing while chasing your ideals is never a failure at all.

Success and Contentment

Many people go their entire lives not knowing if they have succeeded in anything they have tried. For most people, success is accomplishing the goal they set out to do such as getting a job, running a certain time, getting promoted, helping others or finally buying their own home. These are all great goals to have, but what happens once you've reach that goal? Do you become happy? Is everything else meaningless or suddenly  easier? What now once you have achieved your goal?

This topic was brought up over and over again through various readings I have done such as in John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success" book and Anthony Famiglietti's blog posting on Flotrack titled Contentment. Personally I have adapted both philosophies and created a sort of blended definition of success and content that become interchangeable at certain points. John Wooden is one of the greatest coaches of all time and has easily changed the lives of millions of people through his teachings and approach to coaching. Not only did he accomplish great things as a coach but also as a philanthropist by giving back to those in need and helping whenever approached. Anthony Famiglietti is a 2 time US Olympic runner and a highly talented competitive track runner. In fact I had the opportunity to meet with him and talk for a couple minutes after one of his best 5k races. I was a mere high school student at the time but even then I can tell he was someone different. He kept himself very composed and spoke very intelligently. It only took a couple of minutes for him to become one of my favorite runners and three years later I would read his blogs on flotrack.org and become even more of a fan.

John Wooden and Anthony Famiglietti are two completely different personalities. Wooden was more of a quiet and humble man while 'Fam' is a very charismatic and energetic individual, but yet they both shared something in common. They both strive to be as successful as they can be. John Wooden's famous meaning of success is "piece of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming." Success is then therefor not a result such as buying your dream house or getting promoted, but the act of trying your best and giving it your all which then becomes your character. We live in a society that measures success, value, or self-worth by seeing how much square feet a person lives on, how much money they make a year, what high tech cell phone they use or cars they drive in. However, when we decided to reject that thought process and choose to view success or self-worth as the act of hard work and effort we will surely find piece of mind and content within ourselves.

John Wooden

Anthony Famiglietti

Contentment is almost the opposite of what success is. But yet I managed to sneak the word into the last sentence.  Content means ease of mind as much as it does to accepting the circumstances as they are and being satisfied with them. This is not what success comes from. Success is not letting oneself accept the circumstances as they are. Success should be giving every possible effort to change circumstances for the better. This is where Anthony Famiglietti's blog comes in. He describes the life of a competitor or dreamers as constantly fighting the feeling of success and contentment. One can never achieve their greatest potential if one becomes content with the first feelings of success in their path. That is why content and success must have a constant battle so that one will strive to become the best that they are capable of becoming.

Should we ever stop ourselves from becoming the best? Or maybe one would ask why should we work hard to become the best if we have no idea when we become our best? This only reminds me of the question asked to George Mallroy, "Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?" which he then simply answered, "Because it is there." The point I am trying to make is that why should we settle and become content with what we have accomplished. Why should we not get as close to our greatest potential possible? Or in the words of Anthony Famiglietti, "I've felt contentment and I've achieved big goals, but now I just want to see what I'm made of."


Perhaps what this society has focused so much on is what others think of their personal success or achievements. Those are mere awards, certificates, or diplomas that really have no value until people give them importance. If we continue to look for rewards or plaques to justify hard work, when will we learn to become humble men? When will we be able to be proud of ourselves without the constant seek of approval and acknowledgement  from others? These are the boundaries that must first be broken to truly feel piece of mind and success at its finest. We must be able to find ourselves and know what we want from life before we chase our dreams and goals. We must never lose who we are through the long journey of life and understand we are still capable of so much more.   

Know Who You Are

Knowing who you are is often hard to describe. How do you describe who you are or who you have been your entire life? Many people say that who you are is determined by the actions you make. I don't completely agree with this because this states that you are only someone until you do something or take action which is usually the result of another action. Who I am is as reliant on what I have experienced, what I have done, and who my family is. I do not have to take action for people around me to know I am of Hispanic decent. We live in a society that has focused on how people look whether it be race, clothes, weight, class, or looks. If you ever find yourself convinced that who you are is based on the last four I listed, there needs to be a radical change of values in your life.

I purposefully excluded race because I believe regardless if you are deeply connected to your race or not, you must always find a sense of pride in your family roots. I say this because no matter where you may be you can always find comfort in family. Your family are who they are because of  values passed on from generation to generation in their race and culture. I am of Mexican decent and although I may not speak Spanish fluently any longer, I take pride in knowing I have a rich family background in Mexican history and culture.

Aside from this I believe that who we are is determined by two main things: what we want out of our lives, and how we go about getting that. I am aware that this is very general but please think this through with me. Any person can say they want to be successful, rich, or have a loving family, but it does not stop there. You can either work hard for it, be a honest person, accept help and get through life fair while doing your best; or you can whine, cheat, lie, expect things to be given to you and never get what you wanted in life. However in order to know what you want in life there needs to be one more major revelation in life.

You must know what it feels like to fail OR find the passion in your life that will reveal who you are.
This may sound like the cliche for success; You will never know how it feels to succeed until you know what it feels like to fail, but I do believe that from personal failure a spark is ignited within those to work harder for what they want. There are countless movies based on the lives of successful people who fought through failure. One relatively recent movie was of the life Chris Gardner who was a struggling salesman. He eventually had no money and lived on the streets with his son going from public restroom, to homeless shelter, to motels as he was working as an intern for a very competitive company. You may know what movie I am talking about now and know that Chris Gardner eventually won the intern position and began working at the company. He eventually became CEO of his own stock-brokerage firm and is a multi-millionaire. This is the type of stories that do in fact go on every single day. It may not end up being a blockbuster movie, but every one of us faces a battle that knocks us down to our knees and challenges us to figure out how to raise above it all. This is often where passion is also found. The passion we have to live, work, or change our life is what makes raising from our failure reveal who we are. We all make small and often meaningless decisions in life such as what to wear, what to buy, and what to watch; but the decisions that more than anything reveals our character is showing how much we care to pursue our passion. Our ability to care is what often defines what friends we make, what friends we keep, what career we choose, how we treat your family, how we view our past, how hard we work, and how much patience we have to keep trying.

Who we are is not looking in the mirror and describing our physical attributes or style. Who we are becomes what we refuse to let go through the tight grip of passion our body radiates. The challenge is withstanding the journey to find our passion and be ready to crawl back up from failure.