Latest / Student Of Life / Failure Isn't The Enemy | Student Of Life Ep 12 (JTT)
Transcript
- TRE: Failure isn't something to avoid. It's actually one of life's greatest teachers. Hi everyone, Trey here, and I'm so glad you're with us today. And by us, I mean our little friend Tim Moffy. Tim S: Hello? TRE: And the one and only Johnny B. Jonny v: How's it going, everyone? TRE: Well, today's topic is a simple one and it's a little bit complex and I know that's kind of a contradiction, but hey, so is life, right? We're gonna dive Tim S: Mm-hmm. TRE: into how failure is something most of us spend our lives trying to avoid. But what if we've been looking at it completely the wrong way? Well, today we're asking a simple question. Is failure really the enemy? Or is it one of life's greatest teachers? I don't know. Does anyone know? Tim, do you know? Tim S: I don't know if I know, but I know that it is a good teacher. TRE: Johnny V, do you know? Jonny v: I I know exactly what it is. It's one of the hardest lessons that you could learn in life. So I wouldn't say it's a teacher, but it's definitely a lesson. TRE: All right, all right. Jo Johnny V has the answer. So we're gonna go to Johnny Jonny v: Yeah. TRE: V for all of these questions because he knows. Tim, Jonny v: That's right. TRE: you're not gonna answer any questions. I'm gonna ask the questions, so I'm not gonna answer them. Jonny v: Ha ha ha ha ha. TRE: but you know, in in all seriousness, I do have the first question. What's one failure that seemed devastating at the time? But ended up changing your life for the better. Tim, what's all with you then? Tim S: A tough one. I mean, there's so many minor and I guess major failures. And I guess I don't even like using the word failure for some of them. I guess it's just maybe a a setback or maybe a a bump on the road. I mean, I guess there's a wide range of things that I guess you could call them. But I think probably one of my my biggest ones would have been man, that's tough. TRE: All right. Do you need a little bit of time? 'Cause I can give you some time. Tim S: You know what? Yes. I will take I will take a minute. I've I've had quite a few, so I need to I need to pick and carefully choose a a good one. TRE: Yes, yes. Johnny V. Did you want to go ahead and start with one? Jonny v: Yeah, actually I I can give you a pretty good one. not my biggest failure because thank God thank God I haven't had like big failures. but a very teachable moment was learning how to ride a bike again. yeah. No. Not a TRE: Now wait, wait, wait, wait. You mean a bicycle or a bike? A motorbike? Jonny v: a a bike. A motorcycle. I just wanted to throw it out there. I knew I got you like that Tim S: okay. Jonny v: too. You're like, you don't know how to ride a bike? Hey, it's okay if you don't know how to ride a bike. If you're a Phoebe Buffet, it's okay. Tim S: That's true. Jonny v: No, TRE: really weird. I love it. I love it. Keep coming, Johnny. Jonny v: Yeah, so early in early in life I I initially learned and it was just a complete failure. It's something that I've always wanted it to do. But when I was in the military when my buddies he signed me up for the class to take along with him. And the funny part about it was I had never touched a bike at that time. I never ridding a motorcycle at that time. Didn't even know how to turn it on, nothing. but he had said, Hey, you know how to drive a stick shift car, this should come naturally. Well, years later, initially I did those classes, but then years and years later, I was like, you know, it's like riding a bike, it's it's whatever. I finally got my my motorcycle of my dreams. I say that because I seen my uncle riding a similar bike and then my neighbor growing up had the exact a very similar bike to what I have right now. But it's called a not sponsored, but it's a Harley Road King. I didn't buy it Tim S: Yes. Jonny v: from Harley. I bought it from second hand off of an old man and he gratefully so he let me he let me take it for a test ride, which I declined. I didn't have the cash on hand and I didn't want to drive drop it. And lo and behold, after I bought it off of him, the first thing I did was drop it. I made it right around the block and I dropped it right on myself. And if I would have took that as a sign of Hey, you failed, like this is it right here. I I barely made it into second gear and I dropped it at a red light, I would never have gotten to enjoy one of my biggest joys in life now. One of my things that helps me mind meld and kind of de-stress when I need to. And I can only imagine having to turn that back around and just try to sell it again and just look at it as a the worst thing I've ever done in my life. Nope. I've invested so much time into that bike. I've put so much like manpower wrenching I guess. TRE: Mm-hmm. Jonny v: into it so I'm I'm very happy that even though I took that as a life lesson that I failed at, I I didn't take it as it was assigned to quit basically. TRE: Yeah, yeah. And you know that that's a really good perspective. I mean, hey, you're you're enjoying it now, you know? yeah, I I dropped it. yeah, Jonny v: Yeah. TRE: yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, but you did. You did. Jonny v: Eventually I picked it back up. Yeah. TRE: You you know, I mean, who's to say that, you know, t time is relative. Let me just say that. Time is relative. So so you did pick it back up. So I I'm glad that you did. Now, Tim, did you still need some more time or you ready to go? 'Cause I can go if you need me to. Tim S: No, actually, you know, hearing about that from a a a vehicle standpoint, I think that's that's the two quick ones. I think my first crash that I was ever involved in, TRE: No, no, Tim Tim. No, I only need one from you, man. Hey, hey, we're Tim S: And and th and that's why I'm I'm I'm jumping I'm jumping into the most important one. I'll save the other TRE: Okay. Tim S: one for later. So eighteen years old, coming back from seeing some friends down at one of the colleges, just graduated high school, was coming back to the house where I was living at the time with parents, got hit head on at about fifty five, sixty miles an hour, totaled my car, totaled the other car, and it was my first time really driving a significant distance by myself. And of course, you know, sleep deprivation. I was like, I can make it back, no problem. I'm I'm good. I'm good. wasn't good. should have, you know, listened to my body, should have listened to, you know, what was going on and stopped and gotten some caffeine. But eighteen years old, I'm I'm thinking, you know, I I can push through anything at this point. I know I know everything. and I Jonny v: Mm-hmm. Tim S: I ended up looking back it crumpled both vehicles. I'm you know extremely lucky to to be alive and and to have walked away with it completely unscathed except except for you know seatbelt bruise Jonny v: Okay. Tim S: on my chest and then some a little bit of burning from the airbag going off. But it took a it took a minute after that that I you know didn't have a vehicle to like really think You know, am I gonna be able to go further than, you know, where I was working at the time, which I could have taken the the quick back roads, you know, and it would have been a 15 minute drive from there. you know, I didn't want to drive any further than that. I didn't want to go any I didn't want to drive at night. I didn't want to do any of that stuff. I mean, it it shook me pretty bad, but I think I kind of talked myself out of it and was like, no. you know, I had friends that were at schools all over the, you know, different places and different states and, you know, I had family that lived in different cities at the time. And yeah, I think if I wouldn't have, you know, like in essence gotten back on the bike but gotten back behind the wheel, I probably would have been, you know, home I don't want to say homebound, but it it definitely would have negatively impacted me, I think for the remainder of time. 'Cause I probably would have lived with that fear of like, well if I leave my neighborhood here, you know, let's just say I don't get another crash. And I mean that's a common, you know, unfortunate trend after someone gets in a serious, you know, crash like that. TRE: Yeah. So, I'm actually gonna give my mine and I'm we're gonna give a like an abridged version 'cause we're kinda running out of time on just the tip. But just the tip. It it's actually gonna flow right into my whole failure situation. So I left the correctional job that I was working for Dayton in Ohio. And I attempted to go for fire service. I did not make it out of the academy after failing my third written test. Nothing physical. Hey, I was doing it. I was knocking it out. You know, I don't know anything about fire. I I'm trying to learn the stuff on the fly. It's the first class that they had in so long. Anyway, failed my third test. They washed me out. And I was devastated. Why? Because I put in so many hours. I I try I I gave it my all in my opinion. And I know we kind of touched on this in another episode, but I want to revisit this one because if it wasn't for that failure, then I wouldn't have been unemployed because I didn't want to go back to Dayton correctional with my tail tucked between my my legs. Jonny v: System. TRE: My pride was a little bit too much, right? Too too big. And if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have met my wife. And ten years later, we're still married. So failure, but it kind of worked out. Hey, it's a it's a good thing. And I'll go in deeper into it when we go into the full package. But Tim, I definitely want to tell you that I am so happy that you're still here with us and you had that life left. that you learn from, right? Johnny, I'm so glad that you picked back up that bike that you put down. You picked it back up. That, you know, eventually you did. I'm happy for you. And that's one of your passions. So I'm glad you both are okay. Now This episode itself, I really wanna talk about how we can spend our entire life kind of chasing someone else's definition of success and never really discovering our own. You know, that's something that I wanna talk about in this one. And just some of the topics that we're gonna be discussing. We're gonna be talking about, you know, why people feel f fear. Sorry, can't even talk right now. I might need to drink some water. Hold on. Let me get a sip of water real quick. Gotta hydrate. Jonny v: Drink water Come on, Corman. You went to the you went to the Air Force for a little too long, didn't you? TRE: Si, si Tim S: Spoiled. Jonny v: Yeah. TRE: my gosh. So why do people fear failure so much? And is it the failure itself or the fear of being judged? Those are two questions that I have. Do either one of you want to put one above the other before we go into the full package? Is it the fear of failure itself or the fear of being judged? Which one? Johnny. Jonny v: honestly I'd like to say it's more nowadays TRE: Without without expanding on it. Jonny v: Yeah, yeah. Nowadays TRE: Okay. Jonny v: I feel like it's more of the fear of being judged, definitely. TRE: Okay, you're going with that for right now. Okay. The fear of being judged, that's Johnny. Tim, what do you have? Tim S: So actually I was gonna say judge, so I'll keep mine brief so we can I'll expand further on that a little bit later. TRE: Okay, so you're going with fear of being judged. Johnny, Tim, you're both going there. I'm gonna say Ooh, this actually might be one that we might agree on, kind of. I wanted to kind of like be that counterbalance and say, no, it's gonna be the failure itself. No, I think it I think you both are probably right, and we're gonna discuss this the fear of being judged. That's my opinion. Ooh, yeah, we're gonna have a conversation about this. So I cause I know that we've all experienced failure, but you know, we're we're all kind of like so terrified of it. And and I wanna know why we're so terrified of it in the first place, you know? And we're gonna be discussing this and so much more in the full package, which is up right now on Patreon. So feel free to head on over there and continue to follow the conversation. But if this was just enough for you, I wanna thank you for being here. And before you leave, be sure to have that notification bell selected and subscribe button pushed. We're gonna go ahead and cross on over to the other side and see you guys in the next episode as well.