112. Collecting Failures

Sincerely, Future You - Collecting Failures

"But the whole reason I call it failure collection is for you to start neutralizing the word failure in your brain". Coach explains what failure collection is, and what its objectives are.

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Full Transcript

Jessica McKinley 00:00

But the whole reason I call it failure collection is for you to start neutralizing the word failure in your brain Welcome to sincerely future you a podcast for entrepreneurs looking to scale their business by mastering their time, money, and drama. I'm your host, Jessica McKinley, founder of what's happening to coach, a life coaching program that helps ambitious women like you make decisions today with the future you in mind

Jessica McKinley 00:37

Hello, Happters, happy almost Mother's Day, you guys can't believe it. Another year going by. And the word mother is going to mean something so different to me soon. Being a mom to a daughter, being a mom to two kids, being a mom in a blended family, going from being a co-parenting Mom, where I share custody to like a full-time mom again, which is just crazy. But yeah, I really have been thinking of you guys so much as I think about how I want to do motherhood this time around. And I'm curious how you guys do it, how you enjoyed last week's episode or two weeks ago, I believe the episode we had our guest, Kelsey Smith on. And she and I talked about motherhood versus CEO. And it's just so fascinating to me how everybody is still just figuring it out. Like we've had centuries and centuries of motherhood. And still, we're trying to figure out how to balance the most simple things in our day. Motherhood, so consuming the same way our business can be. But at the end of the day, it's really just our thoughts. So I wanted to offer you some quick thoughts that I have that make me feel connected to being a mom that you can borrow if they resonate with you this week. And I would love for you to share with me your thoughts as well. One of my favorite thoughts as a mom is more is caught than taught. I've said this before, I feel like on the podcast because it's so much, it just really describes the way that I think about parenting, which is that I just want to be an example to my kids of what is possible. And that I can tell them all day long, I could just have them really listen to this podcast if I want them to be raised as good humans and good people. But at the end of the day, in the same way you guys could listen religiously to this podcast. But unless you're inhabiting sessions taking the action, right, unless you're out there really doing it, you're not going to absorb it in the same way your brain is not going to make it the same habit. So kids really, they absorb. And they learn more about what they see you do. And by action then than what you tell them to do. So more is caught than taught. Another one and this is a completely separate topic is really just that the best thing I can do for my child is to take responsibility for my own emotional well-being. And this came up again, for me in my coaching this last week, I was getting coached again on my thoughts of being rushed to try and prepare everything for the baby before the baby's born and on maternity leave. And I said, I'm finding myself still just having more negative and worry and dread thoughts about the baby that I want to and I want to just really like deepen my loving thoughts towards the baby before she's born. And she was like, it's really interesting. Like why do you think that the amount that you love your babies is not enough? And what we ended up concluding was the best way for me to show up and be connected and loving towards Mari is to be more connected and loving towards myself as a mother. And it was just like like I teach you guys this stuff all day long. But of course, of course, the most of the times when I feel the most disconnected from and missing out on the love that I get to have for this new child is when I'm not loving myself for showing up imperfectly the way that I am right now. Which is still just trying to figure it out. And when I can fully love myself for not having all the answers, then there is just way more room for forgiving love, we can't give love that we're not giving to ourselves. So I just want to share that for all of you guys, if you are struggling with any part of parenting or motherhood, and you're going into Mother's Day, no, I actually don't have my son this weekend. And a lot of people have thoughts about the fact that I'm not switching around weekends to have my son for Mother's Day, similar to the way that most fathers just want to golf on Father's Day and not actually be with their kids. But I love my quality one-on-one time with Calvin. But you know, for me, Mother's Day, right now this year is just going to be about loving myself. And I think that's the best thing I can do for Calvin always and I just wanted to offer that to you. For those of you guys who are trying to be more enough, and be better in some way. There's no such thing, the amount that you're loving the amount that you're giving it is enough. And if you do want to give more be better. The first step is really to be with yourself and love yourself for your imperfections wherever you're at right now. So I want to share that and wish you guys such a happy Mother's Day.

Jessica McKinley 06:25

And now I want to shout out the Happster of the week, this Happster of the week is Chelsea Jernigan, Chelsea had a slower start to results in happening sessions than some of the other girls like everybody, I had to remind people consistently throughout the six months that there's a reason this container is six months long. It's because regardless of whether you're like a boom, like a shoot to success in the beginning, or you're like a slow burn, everybody gets the results of more time, more money, and more emotional well-being by the end of the six months. So it doesn't really matter how you do it, the way that you're approaching it is perfect for you. So it's easy to want to compare and despair. I've done it in my own mastermind, I'm definitely like, we're bouncing Chelsea is also a mom, she also is bouncing multiple different jobs, she's going to be prioritizing her time differently than some of the other people that are in the group. There's nothing wrong with that. And I do the same thing in my own mastermind. So make sure again, if you if you're doing this yourself if you're comparing and despairing. Go back and listen to the episode I did on using your tools against yourself. We want to make sure that you are always showing up. So Chelsea didn't do that. And she just this week has started to really click into the tools specifically with failure collection, which we're gonna be talking about. Today on this episode, she was setting up her failure collection and feeling just like okay, like, hopefully, it works out and I'm like, Nah, if you're doing failure collection, right, it is so uncomfortable, that there is no way for you to not have massive growth. So I was just sensing I was like, there must be something she probably didn't set up the worksheet properly. It's not uncomfortable enough for her. And sure enough, what we found were that her actions, were not quite specifically going to lead to the results that she wants as they might, but it was leaving a lot ambiguous. Part of her goal is to grow her client base. She's also a coach. And you should definitely check her out. If you want to coach for teens, she coaches teens, which I think is such an important space. And she also coaches the mom, moms of teens. And a lot of what she was doing was very passive action. And I said, Hey, listen, at the end of the day, an offer is not the same thing as just throwing up a post. And she was like, oh, okay, and then out flowed all of her discomfort about oh, like I have all of these thoughts about being salesy and not wanting to make people feel uncomfortable. And I was like, now we're getting to the good stuff, right? Because, yes, of course, you don't want to be selling from those thoughts not going to be very good. And for those of you who have not go back and listen to my two episodes, there's going to be a lot of links in the show notes. Two episodes on selling. One I believe is creating safety to sell something like that. You'll see it in there and then selling fuel. Oh safe to buy all the things and then selling fuel. I'll put the link for both of those episodes are really really Good episodes on selling from really clean thoughts, if you have thoughts about sales go and listen to those episodes. But we just poured it all out. And we found some really quality thoughts for her. And all of a sudden it was like, Oh, when I have these amazing thoughts selling didn't become something that was so so. So it was definitely uncomfortable. So for her, but it wasn't she wasn't in resistance, she wasn't showing up and doing an action at the expense of herself, and who she wanted to be right, it felt aligned. And that's what I want to make sure that all of you guys are doing. So I just really wanted to shout out Chelsea, because I think that she is going to see an influx of results over the next week, because she's been taking massive action. And she's definitely already seeing lots of learning. And she said that she has had such a creative block, like, be lifted, and her website is just like she's like I've revamping everything I just feel so inspired. And all of this comes when you're willing to do the hard thinking.

Jessica McKinley 11:09

So let's talk about it. You guys, let's talk about failure collection. It sounds so fun, right? Collecting virus. Now, I get it less than the word is intentionally not sugar coated, I could have named this worksheet, like the ways to grow your business, because that's essentially what it does. But the whole reason I, I call it failure collection is for you to start neutralizing the word failure in your brain. It is so important for you to start feeling at least neutral. Now I've gotten to this weird, sick place where I hear the word failure. And I feel like excited about it. Because I understand that on the other side of failure is everything that I want. So I was talking to my podcast people and they were like, Listen, you have done. You've mentioned failure collection like 1000 times in different episodes, but you've never done an episode on it. I was like That can't be. And of course they are right, Donna, and yes. So finally, we're bringing you one of the cornerstone philosophies of the hamster program, which is monthly failure collection. It's not only a worksheet, but it's just a principle that we live by. And because it takes people a while to neutralize to the term, I've come up with some analogies for it for you to maybe soften to it so that you can at least get yourself to do a month or two of it and reap the benefits. Actually, for my client, Christine, who is a gym-goer, you guys can relate to this. Maybe if you go to the gym, or if you've ever like lifted weights, or you just know someone who lifts weights, me this will help you, you can think of this as kind of maxing out maxing out on your weight. If that is the goal when you're lifting, right, you're lifting, like 200 pounds, and then you're lifting to 25. And then you're lifting to 35. And you go until you fail. And they call that min-maxing out and failure is the goal. You don't want to just do 10. And if you could keep doing more, you're like cool, I did 10 You want to go until you fail. And so when I said it in this MicroSIM was like, Oh, that totally makes sense now like maxing out that feels good. So whatever works for you. It is the goal because of course when you fail in that analogy, and also in failure collection, it is what grows you it's what strengthens you, it's what makes you more prepared to go into the gym or to go into your business the next day. Okay?

Jessica McKinley 13:51

People avoid failure, because they don't want to feel bad. That's it period. They just don't want to feel that they want to succeed. They want to win. They want to feel proud and it feels successful, which I get. We all want that right. And society has trained us to believe that that is the goal, the positive emotions, right? It's even in our Constitution, the pursuit of happiness. In the United States, it's actually an illegal, right that we have. And it's so backward because in order to create these wins in the successful, this success, we need to go towards failure to get to the success. But instead, we think that success is on this side and failures on this side. And we need to go towards success. So we need to avoid anything that will have us to fail. So we set up our actions in a way that has us succeeding and winning in our own limited life. So like I see people when they first do this form, they just want to set up really small What kind of tasks are wins are things that they know, are uncomfortable, maybe they should do. They're not their favorite tasks, but like, they know they can kind of win. And the same thing with goals, and they avoid failing, and they avoid what scares them. But that's exactly what creates the results that you want.

Jessica McKinley 15:19

I want you to really ask yourself this question, are you risking failure? True, measurable sales or wins? Posting? A post does not equal wins or losses, right? Like, even if you're like, Okay, I got a bunch of likes, what does that mean? What is the point of getting those likes, what is the point, of posting and having people like it, even if they share it, like, At the end of the day, I've had slow growth for someone who on Instagram for someone who has had very fast growth, with revenue? And I would so much rather, that is the metric that I care about, I have had so much growth in terms of clients getting tons and tons of results and increasing their efficiency and getting results. And much rather have that than have seven reels go viral. Right? So what is that creating for you? So when I say, are you risking failure? Are you putting yourself out there in a way that is going to, like, my coach calls it put you in harm's way, but really like make you feel like shit? So I think of it. And when you're trying to figure out what is the best way to fail for your particular business? In the beginning, you're gonna have to think really hard. Because you're not used to thinking about this. And people will be like, Oh, it's really hard for me to think about these things. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll just sit here and wait, I'll wait for you to come up with the failure, that is your best guess. Because, yes, I could give you some suggestions, I could give them some suggestions. And listen, I do if they are really, really stuck. But first, I challenge them to just challenge their brain, the only reason I can give them really good suggestions is that I've already done the hard thinking for myself. For years now, I'm more practiced in hard thinking. But every level of my business, there's a new level of hard thinking that I have to do. And if I look outside of myself, for my coach, or for other people who have done the thinking, then really, I'm not building up my own brains ability to create results. And that's why people come to me, they don't come to me, so that I can tell them how to be successful. They come to me because I show them how their brain can create their own success so that once they're through six months, their brain is more valuable, not my brain, if I'm doing all the thinking for you, right? So are you finding your own brain first? Or are you looking outside of yourself and have like I said, in happening sessions, I teach you how to access your own genius, not just by giving you the answers. This room is where you think hard, you struggle, you fail, and have massive discomfort. And you learn resistance, and start to see yourself as the authority that you create crave when you come to your mentors. It's kind of ironic, right? So tempting sometimes, for me to give you guys the answer. Sometimes someone will come to me, and they'll be like, Oh, what do you think I should do? And my brain has like 10 ideas. And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, Oh, I'm just like sitting here. My, my best coaching is when I don't tell you what to do. And you come up with it yourself. Because the truth is, is that I don't know what's best for your business. Your brain knows what's best for your business. And the other thing is, too, if my brain comes up with it, and then you go and do it, and it doesn't work your brains like cool. This program wasn't for me. She like didn't work. Like we can blame and it feels safe. It feels good. Because there's no risk there. When you come up with it, you have to risk being like, Am I good at this? Yes, yet? Do I have good ideas? And you have to build that up. I want you to fail at guessing in the beginning. Your first failure collection is going to suck and like the whole experience is going to suck and if you are feeling terrible, and you're a hamster listening to this, like you're doing it right I always tell them right like you guys are doing it right. The reason I don't have the program be three months is because it's so many people have said this, Danielle Williams, who was on the show like a couple months ago, she shared about how like, if she had to renew every month that three months she for sure would have quit because most of her thoughts were like Like, I am failing at this. And I was like, Yes, congratulations, you're going all in. And you're figuring it out, and you still have more growth and more failing to collect. And by the end of six months, she was like, I can't believe how much of a 180 My mind has had from going through the failure and showing myself that I can handle the failure. And it doesn't mean anything about me. Which is so fun, right? Okay. So once you start to see yourself as the authority and have massive breakthroughs, you start dropping the confusion and overwhelm that comes from having a failure and from not hitting your goal. This is how I pursue making offers, right? I decide how many yeses I want, right? So how many clients I want that month or that quarter that week or that day, even? I've done it been very fun to do a day challenge. And then I go, Okay, what do I have to do? What is my action plan? This is how I zoom in and measure whether I'm actually showing up for my business or not, I don't measure it based on my results, I measure it, I set the result. And then I set it and forget it and I create the action plan that I'm guessing will bring me those results. And then how do I know if it will bring me those results? By doing it and finding out and either collecting a file or a win? Right? So when people come to you, they're frustrated, they're like, Ah, I'm not getting the results I want. I'm like, Well, are you doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result? Or like, are you trying to learn from what you're doing and seeing if it's working stuff that the process maybe isn't working? There are a couple of different ways. So I'm going to go through the general overview of what a monthly failure collection worksheet looks like. So I don't want you guys to associate hitting your mini goals, which we do in these with success. So I'm going to talk through that in a second. But I want to go through the worksheet, essentially, what you have to do every month is you have your big goal that you're working towards, for the year, your stretch goal. And you have that at the top of the worksheet every month, you're making sure that you're setting up your failures to inevitably bring you closer to your impossible goal. Then you set up what is the first mini goal that you're pursuing this month. Now, a lot of people they want to say like, oh, I want to write three chapters of a book, let's say, but that's actually not a result that you want. That's an action. So the result, it takes more thinking, it's like, what do you want at on the other side of that. So I'm gonna give you an example. So let's say my, one of my mini goals was to grow the podcast downloads by 5k, this month, right? I want 5k more downloads this month. First of all, I have to make sure in order, I understand what I did last month. So I look at my metrics, I have that there, and I get the total amount of downloads that I want this month, then I have that goal. I've set it. And I have to reverse engineer using the model, what is my action plan, my feeling plan and my thought plan to create that result? The action plan is going to be very exhaustive, and you want it to feel very uncomfortable. So I said exhaustive, not exhausting. But you know you're exhausting is a feeling that comes from your thoughts about it. So that's why we want to make sure that we have the thought plan in place as well. Because the action plan might look like pitch 50 podcast to guest guest on which you can then chunk that down to be like, create a list of 50 podcasts that you want to pitch and then find the places that they allow submissions and then get their emails and then create a script and then send that scripts to them and then have follow ups and have deadlines for this. You break it down for the month. So you say if I want 50 Then I want like about 12 a week that I'm pitching what does that look like? When is that getting done? Are we doing it one day a week? 12 Or am I doing it three days a week for write it? We make it until it feels digestible? And then we schedule it out? Right? So not just that, but I'm then going to try and create blog posts to increase the search engine optimization. I'm going to create a call to action at the bottom of every single one of my posts referencing a podcast episode load and asking people to either save it or share that episode with someone that they think they need. I have all this action plan laid out, I schedule it, then I make sure what is my feeling plan because we know that showing up to action when your thought is, well, I'm never going to hit 5k more downloads that's like really hard or like, this is so much work, you're not going to be able to show us your action plan, right? So what would you have to feel in order to show up to that the feelings that I would put in this plan would be valuable, I want to feel valuable, right? Like I am value. People need this valuable. Pumped, like, let's go, let's do it right challenge. I kind of like that energy for me. And done energy as in? Oh, I'm just showing up to the plan. But the results already done. I just believe that it's done in the future. I already have the 5k downloads. Those are really fun feelings for me when I'm feeling that so much easier to show up to pitch people because I'm not like, are they gonna say yes or no? Are they gonna like, tell me I'm the worst? Are they gonna go see me? I don't know, this is hard. I don't. It's like, No, I'm like, oh, it's done. So even if they say no, I'm like, Well, someone else is gonna say yes. Or they're gonna refer me or they're gonna change their mind. So we go, then I have the thought plan, which is people need this podcast, the success of the show is inevitable. And also right that like, my clients need this, people are going to feel compelled to join happening sessions, and then inevitably, have more money and have more time and have more emotional peace, which is important for the world's You're welcome. Right, which is another feeling. You're welcome energy. And that will help you show up to your plan. So that is an example of just one of the many goals that we have for have for the month. Does this sound like? It's a lot of thinking? Yes, it is a lot of things. Can I tell you that Sarah, in having sessions was talking about how she did her first, her first failure collection? It took her so long, she was like so exhausted. She was like, I don't know if I can handle this? I don't know. And I was like, sounds like you need like a lighter thought plan in here. And then she said that the second time she did, she went from it taking her like, several hours to 20 minutes to create. And I was like, Damn girl, right? So the more you think on the front end, the more your future self gets to reap the benefits of being like, Oh, this isn't as hard to see why when you guys asked me questions, my brain immediately has ideas for you. It's because I went through that terrible phase, where I didn't have any ideas. And I my brain constantly fed me the thought I don't know all the time, right? In order to get out of that you need to train yourself by thinking hard.

Jessica McKinley 28:01

Okay, this is the process. But like I said to you, I don't want you to associate hitting your mini goals with success. That feels weird, right? You're like, well, I thought the point of the failure collection worksheet was actually to succeed. And I'm like, yes and no, I worry about my clients that get too attached to the wins emotionally. They're like, Oh, my God, I got this. That's the other thing, because what I know happens is that they almost always equally emotionally attached to the fails. So what I would rather you do is celebrate executing your plan, celebrate showing up to your action. Okay, because this is very different. This allows you to feel neutral, it doesn't mean that you don't do a little happy dance, when you get a win. Or you get new clients or you grow your revenue. Or you're you get a podcast guest spot with a super cool mentor that you look up to right? Of course you do. However, you don't attach those wins to who you are. Because when you do, your brain gets into the habit of attaching the same emotions to the fails. And that's what creates the emotional roller coaster that people call the entrepreneur roller coaster. The reason that is optional is because you can just decide that your job as an entrepreneur is to set the goals and then to set the action plan and the feeling plan and the thought plan and to show up and execute on that. And when you do, you can feel extremely proud and accomplished all the time. And then you can start to feel neutral about your growth because a you've already had the conversation with your future self and you built that growth out of done energy and out of kind of belief Given that it was already created, so naturally, you will start to feel like I remember the very first time someone paid me 10k in full. I remember like being in bed at night, and just saying to mark like, oh, yeah, I had my first 10k pay in full client. And it was like, really funny, because a year, probably like a year previous. I remembered celebrating so hard getting like $250. Like, I remember just being like, Oh, my God, like, this is so fun. I just didn't met someone asked me to do a masterclass, and they paid me $250 to just like, tell them what I know. That is so cool. And then I got $10,000. And I was like, Okay.

Jessica McKinley 30:43

And it was because I had been practicing showing up as my future self for so long, that by the time that result comes, you're like, Yeah, this is who I am. This is where I've been being you're kind of confused almost to the point of delusion, where you're like, is this the first time this has happened? I feel like I've been doing this for so long. So I just wanted to share that in case any of you guys have experienced that in your own growth, or hamsters who are listening like you're going to experience this more and more? Okay. So, like I said, I don't want you to get too attached. And the other thing I want to know is that the failure I want you to have is something like goalpost failure, where you are either collecting a win or collecting on a fail based on the measurable result that you set out in this worksheet. Not no show failure. So some people will be like, Yeah, I did great. Like, I just failed on all my goals. I didn't hit my goals. And I'm like, okay, but did you do your action plan? Like, did you show up at all? And they're like, well, kind of a little bit here and there? And I'm like, no, no, that is the unacceptable kind of failure to the action plan is non-negotiable. You're we're not trying to craft like, oh, well like failing, no matter what is just like the point just said, so like, I don't really have to show up. This is not like a backdoor to laziness. This is how you show up, go all out and risk feeling terrible. Not feeling terrible, because you just like, didn't just ignore your own plan and your own goals. Okay. So like I said, this is the process. This is failure collection. But the thought management that you coupled with it is an essential component, it's going to require you doing this failure collection is going to require you to feel more emotion, both positive but mostly negative. In the beginning, especially, then your body is used to tolerating.

Jessica McKinley 32:57

And I say this with, like caution, because I really do think that this work is done best with a coach in your corner, like I do this work every week, which is why I continue to decide to pay 25k to my coach for the six months including two months where I'm going to be on maternity leave, because I know that if I go even a week without my coach helping clean up this, the thoughts that are like bouncing around in my brain, I am not my highest self, I am not able to access the most love, the most joy, the most energy, all of that. So I Yes, you can take the tools, take the process, but make sure that you are coupling failure collection with coaching and thought management. You cannot just take tools, and not also put the mindset with it. So I just needed to have that disclaimer in there. It's gonna require you to feel so much emotion. But when hamsters do this monthly, their success is inevitable. Are you willing to feel what it takes to make your dream business or reality? That's what failure collection does for you. And so excited. I'm really glad that we got this out there. Thank you to my podcast peeps for letting me know this wasn't an episode yet and I hope that it really opened your eyes to what I've been talking about when I say that failure collection. failure in general is the point it is the process. Sending you so much love on Mother's Day whether you're a mother or whether you have a mother or whether you don't have a mother or whether you just mother, all the things I love you guys so much and I am going to go with the rest. That's my goal today. Have a beautiful day.

Jessica McKinley 35:00

Hey Happters. If you want to learn more about today's topic, head over to what's happening.com forward-slash podcasts. That's what's happening. podcast that's what's happening w-h-a-t-s-h-a-p-p-y-n-i-n-g com forward slash podcast if you're a business owner and you're resonating with what we talk about here what are you even doing come hang out with me over where the party's at on Instagram at what's happening w jets again that's happy h-a-p-p-y-n-i-n-g and book a discovery call to see if coaching is your next best step