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by Dale Dauten (*)
Today let us consider how lives and careers come apart – or, said another way, how to fail. During the past year I’ve been doing volunteer career counseling at a men’s center, a place for starting over. While many of those I’ve encountered simply have had a run of bad luck and are regaining their balance quickly, others seem to have mastered the art of screwing up. From the latter, I’ve put together this Guide to Being a Bonehead.
• Don’t know what you don’t know.
If there’s one point the “how to succeed” literature agrees upon, it’s that confidence and a positive attitude are the underpinnings of achievement. Well, if there were “how to fail” literature, it would be full of stories of overconfidence and overpositivism.
Those who have collected the most failures are often the ones who offer the most advice, making assertions with stunning absence of self-doubt. The ones quickly rebounding in their lives and careers are different. They ask the most questions. Said another way, it’s the difference between know-it-alls and learn-it-alls.
• When things go bad, go with them.
In the physics of failure, the critical factor is momentum. The “tipping point” was a health or business failure, being laid off, an arrest, drug habit or divorce. Financial and personal problems tumble down together.
For many of these men, living out their own versions of “Jerry Springer” scenes, their salvation came when they walked away. One young man told of the day his wife introduced him to the man whose baby she was carrying: “I shook his hand and said, 'Thank you – she’s your problem now,’ and walked out for good.”
Having left dreadful environments, the men most likely to succeed have found the humility to understand that they are not stronger than their environment. As one of the recovering addicts put it: “I don’t have to just avoid ‘using,’ I have to avoid ‘using behavior.’ That means giving up all my old friends.” Misery doesn’t just love company, it has an active recruiting program.
• Believe that your job is a dead end.
Every job is a dead end if your end is dead. What people who fail often rarely understand is that every job is an audition.
• Believe that “we’re all in this alone.”
Despite all we hear about the brutal new economic realities, there is still plenty of kindness in strangers. There are still people willing to help. Let’s end with one such story of helping, one perfect for the Christmas season.
Having been kicked out of his apartment, and eventually those of all his friends, a young man was wandering the streets one night when he tried the doors of a nearby church, found one unlocked and spent the rest of the night curled up in a pew. He was awakened by a group of the ladies of the church.
To their credit, the women of the Presbyterian church did not get the police; they got breakfast. They also got him a motel room for the next night and then found him a spot in the men’s center. Those women did more than get him a meal or a place to sleep, they made him want to be like them, made him want to be one of those giving help, which is a marvelous definition of success.
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(*) Corporate Curmudgeon - Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 19, 2001
• Don’t know what you don’t know.
If there’s one point the “how to succeed” literature agrees upon, it’s that confidence and a positive attitude are the underpinnings of achievement. Well, if there were “how to fail” literature, it would be full of stories of overconfidence and overpositivism.
Those who have collected the most failures are often the ones who offer the most advice, making assertions with stunning absence of self-doubt. The ones quickly rebounding in their lives and careers are different. They ask the most questions. Said another way, it’s the difference between know-it-alls and learn-it-alls.
• When things go bad, go with them.
In the physics of failure, the critical factor is momentum. The “tipping point” was a health or business failure, being laid off, an arrest, drug habit or divorce. Financial and personal problems tumble down together.
For many of these men, living out their own versions of “Jerry Springer” scenes, their salvation came when they walked away. One young man told of the day his wife introduced him to the man whose baby she was carrying: “I shook his hand and said, 'Thank you – she’s your problem now,’ and walked out for good.”
Having left dreadful environments, the men most likely to succeed have found the humility to understand that they are not stronger than their environment. As one of the recovering addicts put it: “I don’t have to just avoid ‘using,’ I have to avoid ‘using behavior.’ That means giving up all my old friends.” Misery doesn’t just love company, it has an active recruiting program.
• Believe that your job is a dead end.
Every job is a dead end if your end is dead. What people who fail often rarely understand is that every job is an audition.
• Believe that “we’re all in this alone.”
Despite all we hear about the brutal new economic realities, there is still plenty of kindness in strangers. There are still people willing to help. Let’s end with one such story of helping, one perfect for the Christmas season.
Having been kicked out of his apartment, and eventually those of all his friends, a young man was wandering the streets one night when he tried the doors of a nearby church, found one unlocked and spent the rest of the night curled up in a pew. He was awakened by a group of the ladies of the church.
To their credit, the women of the Presbyterian church did not get the police; they got breakfast. They also got him a motel room for the next night and then found him a spot in the men’s center. Those women did more than get him a meal or a place to sleep, they made him want to be like them, made him want to be one of those giving help, which is a marvelous definition of success.
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(*) Corporate Curmudgeon - Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 19, 2001
