Failure – Dave Glardon

You Can’t Take Credit if You Won’t Accept Blame

December 7, 2020 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

It’s Monday, and you know what that means. Okay, you know what you would like that to mean. Back to bed for another hour or two is what I’m thinking. I actually slept pretty well for a change, but only if we’re grading on a curve. You know, like when the teacher said, “Everybody failed this test, so I guess I have to give you all a C.” Like that ever happened. We just got extra homework.

I had a couple of teachers who could accept credit for the whole class getting it wrong. But that didn’t happen very often. Most blamed it on excessive talking and the entire class, including the teacher’s pet, not paying attention. Oddly enough, that was a great life lesson because it prepared us for the rules of accountability in the “real” world.

And we all know how those rules work. It’s like an old country song written from the perspective of a truck. “There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks … no double-clutching, gear-jamming, coffee-drinking nuts.” Okay, it was a little cute. In one line, the “truck” laments, “If we’re on time he takes the credit, when we’re late I get the blame …”

If you’re nodding your head right now and thinking about anything other than that old song, we need to talk. Because either you’ve been subjected to that philosophy, or it’s your mantra. And I get it. Accepting responsibility for failure is never an easy thing to do, especially if there’s somebody else you can blame. “What do you expect when you work with morons?”

Sadly, we’ve all heard that excuse a few times too many. And to be fair, I’ve worked for some great people over the years. People who, when things go wrong, step up and say, “I must not have explained it correctly. Let’s figure out what went wrong and fix it.” People like that, you’ll follow to the ends of the earth. That’s why they’re called leaders.

But I’ll never forget the day a manager called me into his office to complain about shipping delays that were caused by something my team was not allowed to touch. Yet still, he still gave me a stern warning that, “If we don’t start shipping something in the next two weeks, I won’t be here anymore. And I won’t be the first to go!”

That same manager admonished me when I spoke with him about declining morale. “This company does not have a morale problem … YOU have a morale problem!” He wasn’t referring to me personally, but to the guys who worked for me. If they weren’t happy, it was my fault. Got it. “Can I make some changes, then?” “Not if you want to keep your job!”

We’ve all worked for people like that. When I was in the Navy, we called it “hiding under their shoulder-boards.” It was a reference to those little gold bands on an officer’s shoulders. The more bands they had, the more damage they could cause and the less any of us could complain. Thankfully, most learned a thing or two about leadership on the way up. Most.

So, here’s the question. What kind of leader are you? When things go right, do you puff out your chest and tell everybody how great you are, or do you acknowledge those who helped make it happen? And when things go wrong, do you accept responsibility, or pass the buck? Not just on the job, but in life. You know, where it really counts.

If you want an honest answer to that question, ask your kids. Or just look at how you interact with them. When they mess up, do you look for fault in them, or yourself? There could be any number of reasons they didn’t do as expected. And make no mistake, at least half are factors they control. But where does that leave the other half? Ah, now it’s getting real.

And odds are, if you’re that way with others, you’re the same way with yourself. Any mistakes you make can never be your fault – something or somebody else must be to blame. That’s the only possibility, because you do everything right and would never make such a bone-headed mistake. But beyond the bravado, you know the truth. We all do.

Excuses may hide your flaws (for now), but they also block your ability to rise above those shortcomings. Success isn’t about doing everything right the first time. It’s about learning from our failures so we can grow into the person we need to be. One who not only has the ability to succeed, but for whom success is the only natural result.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

Get Out Of Your Head – You’re Making a Mess!

February 19, 2020March 22, 2020 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Have you ever come up with an idea, something that excites you beyond belief, and you just can’t wait to get started? It usually happens early in the morning or later in the evening. You know, as you’re getting ready to go to work or to bed and there’s nothing you can do about it for at least eight hours. By then, you’re already starting to have doubts. Naturally!

And it’s not because the idea changed. It’s the same as it was when you first thought of it. The timing hasn’t changed, aside from the eight hours you spent talking yourself out of it. Your bank balance is pretty much the same, unless you polished off a bottle of wine as you enjoyed some late-night shopping. So, what’s different now? Why is that great idea suddenly so bad?

It’s simple. You got inside your own head and killed the dream before it even got a chance to breathe. Way to go! You just saved yourself years of agony and millions of dollars, not to mention the ridicule of all those people whose opinions matter more than your own. Thank God you came to your senses in time! This could have been a catastrophe.

So, you go back to whatever it is you were doing. You know, something you had already decided wasn’t quite good enough, which is why you came up with the idea in the first place. You wanted something better. Something that would get you out of bed every morning with a smile on your face, just thinking of all those people who said you could never do it. You rock!

And maybe the idea wasn’t perfect. It happens. But you’ll never really know unless you give it a try. And then keep trying until you get it right. From the beginning of time, people dreamed of soaring with the birds. Oh, they tried. Some with less fanfare than others. I mean, jumping off a cliff while madly flapping your arms certainly makes a statement. Yet, here we are.

Motivational speakers always tell you to be careful who you let inside your head, because people can kill your dreams. They don’t mean to. It just happens. But sometimes, the worst person you can let inside your head is yourself. If killing our own dreams were an Olympic event, some of us would have enough gold medals to fill an entire room. You should see mine.

So, why? Why is it that we look so desperately for something to make life better, and then pass on everything that comes along? Or worse yet, we get started just long enough to convince ourselves it was a bad idea to begin with, and then we share that insight with everybody we know. “Don’t fall for that one. I tried!” No, you didn’t. All you did was trip over the first excuse.

But if you clear the clutter out of the way, you can usually see past the negativity. Sometimes, the one thing that stops us from moving forward on anything is other people. We like to think we’re free spirits, but we rely on other people’s opinions like a teenager relies on their cell phone battery. What will they say? They’ll laugh. I just know it! How will I ever hold my head up again?

Well, get a clue. Unless they’re paying your bills, they don’t have an opinion – all they have are excuses. And the whole time you’re licking your wounds and wondering why this just didn’t work, they’re sitting in front of the TV with a beer, never giving it a second thought. Not because you let them get inside your head – because you let yourself get inside.

Until we can take ownership of our failures, we can never get on the path to success. And those failures begin and end inside our own head. The path may stray outside for others to dump their litter, but once we accept that litter as our own, the dream begins to die.

Other people can only litter your path with the garbage you give them. If you throw it away yourself, they’ll never get the chance. It’s your dream. It’s your life. It’s your head. You set the rules. And as long as you play by those rules, you’ll always come out on top.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

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Swing Like You Mean It!

June 4, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

My office at work is right across the street from a minor-league baseball stadium. You can always tell when the team is in town for a home game, because of all the fanfare in and around the stadium. And the home team has as many die-hard fans as any major-league team. They just don’t have to pay quite as much to watch a good game.

As a young boy, I loved playing baseball. That is to say, I loved putting on the uniform, biting off a big chunk of bubble gum, and standing out there in right-field pretending somebody would actually hit a ball in my general direction. Let’s just say I spent a lot of time kicking daisies off their stems.

And when it was my turn at bat, there was little doubt I’d be heading back to the dugout empty-handed. The only way I got on base was if the pitcher couldn’t throw three balls in the strike zone. I’d swing – sometimes. But even when I did, it was a half-hearted swing because I had accepted defeat before I ever stepped up to the plate.

I always thought failure is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. Years ago, my wife and I owned a NASCAR souvenir shop. We built it from nothing – a few ball caps, some tee shirts, and a display of coffee mugs in the local flea market. We grew that into a fully-stocked weekend store, then opened a kiosk in the local shopping mall, and finally went into a real retail storefront.

I’ll never forget those last two days after the “Closed” sign was placed in the window for the last time. There were boxes to pack, full of items nobody wanted. There were shelves and racks and display cases waiting for somebody to haul them away for half what we paid. Finally, our name was removed from the front window, and it was official – we had failed. Life was pretty bleak.

But as bad as it feels to fail, it’s even worse stepping up to the plate expecting failure, knowing that no matter how hard you try, it’s the inevitable result. In baseball I didn’t swing as hard. I’d look at a perfect pitch and hope the umpire went temporarily blind. In my store, I’d sit behind the sales counter watching cars go by instead of making phone calls. The shelves were dusty. I just quit trying.

I’m sure every one of you has been there. Nothing seems to go right, and each thing that goes wrong becomes just one more example in a litany of excuses for why it was never going to work. After a while, you become your own worst enemy. You hang your head and look for new excuses. And when none present themselves without any effort, you make things go wrong. You’ve long since given up on the idea of success – all you want right now is validation for failure.

Missing a goal feels pretty bad. Do it a bunch of times in a row, and it can really start to wear you down. After a while, you look around at other people who aren’t even trying and begin to think maybe they know something you don’t. You’re over here beating your head against a brick wall and they’re lounging around in the back yard with frozen cocktails. It’s not hard to envy that life.

And then your subconscious mind kicks in and regurgitates every negative thought in its arsenal. “What made you think you could do this? You had to know you’d fail. If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. How much time have you wasted when you could have been enjoying life? You wouldn’t be feeling this way if you’d never set a goal in the first place. Just give up!”

If any of that sounds familiar, welcome to the human race. It happens to all of us. And the more it happens, the more we begin to believe it. Negative thoughts can be pretty convincing, especially in the absence of success. And with every failure, those negative thoughts just get stronger. It’s like pouring gas on a fire except, after a while, the fire begins to pour gas on itself.

It’s only when we put those negative thoughts behind us and replace them with a newfound confidence that we can turn those failures into successes. Approach a goal with the expectation of success and your odds increase exponentially. With every swing, expect a hit and be ready to run to first base when it happens.

Step up to the plate. Swing confidence and conviction and keep doing it no matter how many times you miss. That perfect pitch is coming, so be ready when it happens. This is your time to shine.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!