Escape Velocity: From the Mailbag
It has been a while since my last post. I suppose I was just waiting for the right topic to come along. Recently, a reader sent me an e-mail that got me thinking about personal failure and how to come back from it. Essentially, one needs to see their failure NOT as something negative but as feedback that is simply suggesting that a current course of thinking, feeling, and acting has come to an end. Additionally, one needs to see their situation as a chance to start over. My response to this e-mail was more in-depth than I expected it to be and I thought it was good enough to share with all of you who may be experiencing what the reader is going through. I have included the original e-mail from the reader below (with permission) as well as my response.
An E-mail From a Reader
Hi JD, hope you are well. I guess I’m writing to you because I’ve hit a bit of a roadblock and not sure what to do with myself again. I’ve been rejected from joining the army as I’ve got too many criminal convictions (please don’t hold that against me) and I don’t know which direction I should go in to achieve success at the moment.
I’d greatly appreciate some sort of help from you as everyone I know just seems content with living their days the same, just going to work to pay bills and having no sense of adventure and it’s kinda bumming me out to have no-one to turn to for advice.
Thanks for your time,
K.B. from Australia
My Response
Hi K.B.,
Thanks for contacting me. I feel your pain and can appreciate what you’re going through. My entire life has been a total and complete failure twice in my lifetime. (That’s why I always tell people I’m on Version 3.0!) I won’t get into details but I’m talking disasters here. Everything gone. Start over from scratch… twice. It’s rough… but it’s not the end.
It’s only the beginning, I’ve found.
I have found that knowledge has always been my savior when I needed to change myself rapidly to deal with the failure that I had become. During those times I would go back to school on myself, reading everything I could get my hands on that might give me some kind of clue as to how to proceed. In both cases I found what I was looking for… wisdom… wisdom through knowledge. From there I knew I just needed to take the necessary actions to make it happen. The rest is history.
But I think I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s figure out how my experience can help you.
In my book, I talk about how to talk to and listen to your inner voice. I think you need to sit quietly with no distractions and simply ask yourself what you want. I guarantee you will get an answer in return. Get the answer and set a goal with a deadline by which you will make it happen. Write it down and make three copies of it. Stick one to your bathroom mirror, one in your office, and another on the fridge. Each time you see the copies, read it out loud. Eventually it will get deep down in your subconscious and you’ll automatically start taking the action to make your goal happen.
I wish I could tell you WHAT you should do, but unfortunately I can’t. That’s your purpose and YOU need to be the one to discover it. Read everything you can get your hands on and see if something clicks in your mind. That’s the power of reading. It opens you up to an epiphany about yourself. That’s what happened to me. Reading changed my life. It was the catalyst that gave me the wisdom to fully switch over to Version 3.0. Everything that has happened to me since that time in my life has been part of Version 3.0. (I guess maybe I’m on Version 3.3 if you really want to know the truth.) If Version 3.3 fails I will adapt and evolve. If it fails completely then I will develop Version 4.0. Ultimately, that is my purpose: to get to the highest, most sophisticated, most well-adapted version of myself. How or what I do is just the means to this end.
I hope you will see your situation as a chance to upgrade yourself using the knowledge that exists all around you. The power of the Internet makes knowledge abundant. Collect and process the knowledge, connect the dots, and produce wisdom. All of the tools you need are within you.
Again, thank you for contacting me and I hope I have been of some help and/or service to you. I’m not a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist and I hope you’ll take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt and an understanding that I’m just a guy who’s come back from total and complete failure a couple of times. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible either!
Stay strong and positive. Seek and ye shall find.
Onward & Upward,
J.D. Bloodstone