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Transforming Failure into Breakthroughs · Business for Humans

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I'm Jamie Gennaro, business coach and consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
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On this week's episode of Business for Humans, I'm diving into something close
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to my heart, how we label our experiences, like failure or frustration,
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when maybe they're just breakthroughs waiting to happen.
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Today, I talk about navigating those emotions from grief and career challenges
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to the pressures of self-improvement.
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I explore the idea of finding clarity and success in what might initially feel like setbacks.
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Join me as I reflect on reframing our so-called failures and recognizing the
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progress hidden in them. Enjoy.
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Hello, hello. I'm back. I took last week off.
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Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't. And that's great.
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Either way, sometimes it's what we have to do. I've had a very interesting couple of weeks.
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I think there's something in the air because I think a lot of people have had
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a slightly more difficult last couple of weeks.
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And it was kind of a combination of everything. I think there was work stress,
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there was family stress, there was just general stuff coming up for me.
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October is always a little bit weird because it's the month where my mom passed away.
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It was quite a while ago now, 2016, but somehow I don't realize it comes up
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on me suddenly and I get this slight, I don't know what it is.
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I wouldn't say depression, but I just start feeling down and then I'm teary and more emotional.
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And then when I realize it's October, like, oh, there's this kind of PTSD,
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subconscious grief that just overwhelms me.
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Always in October, it just comes up and sneaks up on me.
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So I've been wading through all of the emotions and sitting with them and trying
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to understand them and being curious about them and realizing that we can frame
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those moments in our lives as bad,
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quote unquote, or somehow we've failed in some way because, oh,
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I didn't do a podcast last week. That's a failure.
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I can look at some of the ways I reacted to things over the last two weeks because
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I was overwhelmed with stress. And I can say to myself, oh, that was a failure.
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I didn't handle that well and beat myself up.
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There's always a difference between self-reflection and
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wanting to improve on things versus beating
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yourself up to a degree where it's really not helping you get better or look
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at things in a different way or approach things in a new way or be exploratory
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or curious because words like failure and defeat and I don't know.
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I mean, I don't want to say sadness is one of those words, but beating ourselves
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up over some of those emotions is not helping us understand that life is 50-50.
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I've said this before. Life is a combination of these down times and the up
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times or the light and the dark.
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This is the juxtaposition of life on purpose.
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And it's important to know that both are temporary. half of the year we're in
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the light and half of the year we're in the dark.
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That's never going to change. As much as we might hate that we have to change
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the clocks and it's really dark in the morning and it's really dark in the evening,
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no matter how much we hate that, it's not going to change.
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We cannot change the angle of the earth to the sun.
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It's never going to change. And these darker periods in our lives are also not going to change.
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So there needs to be some acceptance of that also and some grace and some allowance
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for the downtime, for the rest, for the stepping back.
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The way I want to frame this and the way I sort of started taking notes about
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this podcast was the idea of what feels like a failure can also be a breakthrough.
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I was working with a client where I felt like I was banging my head against the wall.
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I was coaching and consulting through some issues in their organization,
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and I just wasn't feeling any of the work landing. So I,
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For me, what's always my challenge is I'm trying to help guide.
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I help guide individuals and then help guide companies and leaders of companies.
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And I never want to attach myself to the outcome because I'm not doing the work.
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I'm just suggesting the work that could help get them closer to where they want
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to go or show them some of the things or the patterns or the themes that they're repeating.
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And from this outside perspective, say, maybe that pattern is what's keeping you stuck.
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Maybe we just need to see if we can break up that pattern.
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I do generally make people more money, and I do generally help them get unstuck,
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and I do generally help them find transformation.
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But I can't say for sure that that's going to happen because it's so much on them.
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But I still sometimes fall into the trap of wanting to get them to that outcome.
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But sometimes I get frustrated when I'm not getting the client to that place
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because they know they want to get there.
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And that's my work. So I was attaching myself to the outcome.
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I was feeling like I was banging my head against a wall.
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I felt like I was kind of saying the same things, but they weren't landing.
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They weren't resonating.
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They weren't feeling the transformation.
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The light bulbs weren't going off. And I was trying different methods and trying
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different tactics and trying different styles. And I just was not feeling any shift.
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And it was bumming me out.
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And so I was thinking of words like failure and going into this space that felt really negative.
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And it happens to all of us, especially at work, right? Where we just go over
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and over and over problems we're trying to solve.
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We keep trying to solve them in new ways and that it's still not working.
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It creates a lot of frustration and it might to some people look like blame,
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like, oh, it's the company's fault. It's my manager's fault.
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It's my colleague's fault.
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All of that. We blame everyone. For me, I just keep blaming myself.
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I'm like, it's my job to get them to this place and I'm not getting them there.
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What's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? How did I shift it?
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I was going into this spiral a little bit of really beating myself up about
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the fact that I would have not been able to foster any shifts or changes in
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this particular client.
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But yesterday, I met an incredible coach consultant, and I was telling the story
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of this particular client.
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And I was talking about what shifts I have seen happen in the time that I've been working with them.
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And even though I've been in this kind of dark place feeling like a failure, when I told the story,
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when I put all the pieces together in a narrative flow of this is where I started
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and this is where we are now, it got completely reframed.
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And not in a way of like, it wasn't true.
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I was stating facts. I wasn't caught up in a story because my story was that I was a failure.
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I was just stating the facts. Like when I came in, they were here and then we
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worked on this and then we worked on this and then we worked on this and here's
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where we are. And I started reflecting on it in a completely new way.
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It was a complete shift of my mindset of I'm a failure. I haven't gotten them here.
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And instead, I was noting what I had done.
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So rather than focusing on what hasn't worked yet or what I haven't been able
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to do, I was just noting what I have been able to do.
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And this is something we need to remember to do for ourselves.
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So if you're looking at your career and you're saying, oh, by this time,
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by this age, by this phase in my career, I should be, quote unquote,
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I should be at a different point.
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I should have more money. I should be more senior. I should have this. I should have that.
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Rather than going back and noting all the places where you've had success in
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your career, it's just a reframe.
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Instead of saying, here in this present place, I feel like I should be somewhere else,
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it's noting all the accomplishments and successes that you've had along the way.
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So that when you look at where you are now and you look at where you want to
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be going, you're reflecting from a place of success rather than a place of failure.
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Because if you feel like a failure now, you're going to feel like a failure
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tomorrow because you're going to look at those problems you were trying to solve
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from that lens of, I don't know
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how to solve problems or I'm a failure at this or I'm no good at this.
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I should just change what I'm doing rather than looking back and saying,
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I was really successful here.
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I was really good at this. I did that really well.
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Let me build on that. I don't do everything well, right? there are things that
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are not strong points for me and I need to be honest about them.
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And I think what's been interesting over the last two weeks is as I was trying
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to solve these top level, really difficult problems with a different client,
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I went super deep in the weeds with them because I went immediately to my comfort zone.
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I dropped all the way down like 14 points into the weeds because I was feeling
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so uncomfortable at the top that I just fell right into the weeds.
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And this is the number one thing I coach people on.
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Like, hey, that comfort zone might feel good. It's a security blanket, but.
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As a leader, stay in that zone of genius, stay in that space.
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Even if you don't feel comfortable there, that's where your gifts are.
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So lean into them. It might feel difficult to get up there, but stay there.
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And I just immediately dropped right down into the weeds.
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But luckily, it was really uncomfortable there. I realized how bad I am at that.
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And then I shifted back. And then I immediately had this amazing meeting with
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my client where they had all these light bulbs and transformation.
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And I was like, I'm so sorry, I've been doing you a disservice,
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like going into the weeds.
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But I know why I did it. I did it because I was struggling with a different
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client staying up in that strategic place.
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And so I just went directly to my comfort zone.
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And that's an interesting thing to look at.
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So when we're beating ourselves up, there's this reframe that's really critical to us moving forward.
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Because when we're in this beating myself up phase, we just keep pushing ourselves
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down and pushing ourselves down and thinking that the beating ourselves up is
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what we need to get to the next phase.
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Like, oh, if I just discipline myself more, if I just push down.
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That will be what I need to hear to make me get better.
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It's not really going to get you anywhere further because it's the further down
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you push yourself, the harder it is to get back up to the light.
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Now, that doesn't mean to say that in these darker moments of our life that
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we're not in a rush to get out of it, But we also don't want to use that time
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to just perpetuate these negative thoughts about ourselves.
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It's been such a great learning for me, this phase of, okay,
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there's a problem that's difficult to solve.
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And then what do I immediately do when it's hard to solve?
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And where do I go? Where does my brain go?
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And again, not that I'm going to solve that problem immediately and not that
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I'm not going to go into that space again.
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But it's just the awareness that's so important because I was telling myself
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a story that I'm a failure,
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that I'm terrible at my job, while there were people growing and having massive
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transformation that I was kind of ignoring in the process.
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I was so focused on where I was failing that I was really missing the wins.
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And so that's the thing, too. And I think that's something that I've been learning
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over the last couple of weeks, too, with some of my parenting challenges that
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come up quite often with teenagers.
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And I think I was so focused on kind of cracking some piece of parenting that
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I wanted to do better that I was missing some of the places where things were going really well.
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I wasn't I was ignoring what was going well and I wasn't putting.
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Enough attention there and I was so focused
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on places where I felt like I was failing that I
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just was creating more of that right like I
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was creating more of that result of just
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negativity rather than focusing on what was going well and I don't just mean
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for myself it's like recognizing what my kids were doing really well like where
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they were growing and transforming and understanding things and putting pieces
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together and having awareness,
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I was ignoring all that because I felt like a failure.
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So sometimes that beating ourselves up space that we get into,
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we have to remember how it affects other people.
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And again, not that we're trying to have this false sense of happiness all the
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time or joy or false positivity. It's not about that.
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It's just that we have a responsibility to the people around us that when we
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are going into this spin that we think is critical for us to grow when we're beating ourselves up,
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it's actually doing a disservice to the people around us because they're not
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getting the focus on the positive things that they're doing that we've helped even inspire in them.
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They're not getting recognition for that because we're over here feeling like
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a failure for all the other things that we're not seeing happen.
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So just have some awareness around that.
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When you get into a spin of beating yourself up, think about how it's serving
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you or not serving you and how
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it's serving the people around you or not serving the people around you.
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It's okay to have a pity party every once in a while. But I also think it's
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important to have a cap on that.
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Like, okay, I'm going to have a pity party for 15 minutes. I'm going to beat myself up.
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I'm going to tell myself how terrible I am. I'm going to listen to a sad song or watch a sad movie.
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I'm going to cry my eyes out. And then I'm going to blow my nose,
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and I'm going to get up and I'm going to face the day.
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It's kind of this idea of it's okay to feel sad.
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I think sad and grief and all of that, that's different than beating yourself
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up. It's really different.
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I feel sad. I feel empathetic for people that are struggling right now.
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I feel sad about what's going on in the world. I feel sad about watching what's happening in the US.
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Those are all things. It's fine. Feel sad. Feel sadness. Feel grief.
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But if you're using all that against yourself, if you're weaponizing these feelings,
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if you're saying, well, I'm sad and there's something wrong with me, that's different.
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I'm not saying I want you to escape darker feelings, but I just don't want you to weaponize it.
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Don't say, oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm a failure.
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I shouldn't be feeling like this. What's wrong with me?
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This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
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You can do that for 15 minutes, but realize that that's what you're doing.
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Like you're being intentional about it.
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And then just let yourself feel sad, like get into the sadness.
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Don't get into the like, I suck. I'm terrible. I'm an awful person.
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It's not taking action towards what you could be doing differently or how you
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could be showing up differently.
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So self-reflection and wanting to improve is different than beating yourself up.
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And that's a distinction that's really hard for people to make because it feels
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like, well, self-reflection means being self-defacing. I need to kick myself
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in the butt to get myself to do the thing. And it's not true.
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It's just not true. And it's not true for other people either.
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If we're too disciplinary or too aggressive with people about their behavior,
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that's not going to help them change either.
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So we need to give ourselves grace for when we make mistakes and when we fall
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down and when we are in places that we want to be in because of maybe things
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that we've done, but we don't want to weaponize.
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Feelings like sadness or grief to make it seem like there's something wrong with us.
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Those are very normal feelings that we want to engage in and allow and not turn
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against ourselves because of those feelings.
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And it just brought so much awareness to me yesterday when I was reflecting
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on the work I've been doing in the last two weeks.
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And, you know, I went from this feeling of defeated and failure to reflecting
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on, oh, there were some successes.
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And it was a really helpful reframe because now I'm going back into that work
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with energy and enthusiasm.
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I'm going back into that project reflecting on, okay, this is where we've had
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a lot of success. Let's keep building on that.
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Instead of this is where we've had failure and therefore am obviously not the right choice, right?
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Like nobody is having those feelings except for me.
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I'm looking at the work, reflecting on I'm a failure, I'm a failure.
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No one else is giving me that feedback.
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So it's one thing if you're getting that feedback and either it's not landing
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or it's landing harshly on you.
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It's another thing if you're not getting that feedback and the only person that's
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beating you up as you because you want to be better.
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And I think that that is very commendable. I think it's honorable to want to continually improve.
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I think that's the beauty of human beings is our desire to have this self-improvement
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and continually evolve.
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Don't use these feelings to beat yourself up or be careful about it.
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Be aware of it. Be curious about why.
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Why do I feel like I need to beat myself up in order to get better?
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And also, where are the places where you can be focusing on the successes,
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the things that went well, so that you can continue to build on those things?
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When I concluded my story with this woman that I met with yesterday,
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when I got through the story of, okay, here's where I started and here's where
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we are now, I was so excited.
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Like I finished that story with, wow, like so much passion and enthusiasm for
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the possibility of what's next.
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And again, this is not about like faking your way into these feelings.
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I really believed it. It wasn't that I was trying to convince myself that there
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was something positive that came out of this.
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It was that as I was telling the story, it wasn't a fake story. I wasn't lying.
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I was honestly going through all the phases and noting the places where there
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was massive transformation because it's true. And I was just choosing to ignore
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that because I really wanted to beat myself up.
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I was getting something out of beating myself up, which was,
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quite frankly, a lot of tears, which I think I needed to purge because I was
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feeling grief about my mom.
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And I couldn't tap into the grief enough to have an emotional reaction,
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which I felt like I needed.
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And so I just sat in this feeling of failure for a while to just make myself feel sad.
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Which is, again, that was quite possibly what I needed in that moment.
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But if I would have stayed in that space for too long, really in that deep beating
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myself up failure mode, I probably would have left this project.
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And I probably would have felt like it was a failure.
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And I probably never would have acknowledged to the teams that have been thriving.
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I never would have acknowledged that. And they wouldn't have had that external
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recognition of all the positive things that they've been doing.
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And same as a parent, right? Like I went back to my kids and I reflected to
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them like where I think they've been really thriving and doing well and how proud I am of them.
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If I was too deep in that failure state, I wouldn't have been able to recognize
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any of that or acknowledge it.
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So I hope you kind of see that difference, like that juxtaposition of it's not
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about getting yourself out of sadness.
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It's about not weaponizing it and making yourself feel bad over and over and
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over or like a failure because there are amazing things that you've done.
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And it's really important to acknowledge those. and
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and i'm not speaking to narcissists okay i
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think if you're listening to this you're not a narcissist narcissists don't
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have the ability to self-reflect or take feedback or shift their behavior based
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on feedback it's just not biologically not possible for their brains to take
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those inputs in and reflect it back.
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So I'm talking to you, person, audience member, friend, colleague,
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client, who you recognize this in yourself that you beat yourself up too much
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and you forget to look at your accomplishments.
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Because we are the people who are high achieving, being.
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Empathetic people who genuinely from our heart of hearts want to help people.
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And when you're in a position of wanting to really,
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really help people, you feel like you need to be clean and not come with any
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ego and that you have to help bring them up.
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And that means you have to do the work.
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And so we're constantly so focused on doing the work on ourselves that sometimes
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we get a little too mean with ourselves because we want to show up in a way
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that's really helpful to people. That's our intention.
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It's so honorable.
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And it puts us in such a dark place with ourselves because we're so,
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I'm going to like get teary.
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We're so committed to the
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journey right we're so committed to helping people
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that we don't want to show up not in
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our best space and so we spend a lot of time beating ourselves
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up over it and this woman yesterday also asked me like what is ultimately your
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mission in your work and I've said this before and I kind of frame it up in
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different ways my mission is to remove pain it's to remove a necessary pay network.
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So if that's my mission, any places where I'm creating a necessary pain for
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myself, I need to be really clear on, not as a weapon, but I need to be really clear.
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Am I creating a necessary pain for myself in my work?
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Am I creating a necessary pain for any clients in my work? I think there's a necessary pain.
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I'm not going to sugarcoat everything so that my clients don't ever experience pain.
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I'm going to be very clear about places where I think there's opportunity for
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growth, not in a mean way, not intentionally creating pain, but there will be
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some discomfort and pain when those realizations come to pass.
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It's just the way this work goes.
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I'm not thinking I'm never going to be in pain on this journey.
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There will be places where I feel pain and that's okay, but I don't want to
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be intentionally creating pain for myself in this work.
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And anytime when there's pain being created, that's a place to really get deeply
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introspective about the why.
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Is the pain coming from me or is the pain coming from the circumstance or the
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people or whatever else might be surrounding me?
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And where am I invoking that pain upon myself?
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Right we can't control what anyone else does we
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can control how we approach a situation we can control how we feel about a situation
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and we can control whether we stay in a situation or leave a situation all of
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that is under our control and it's all right if you decide to stay that's the
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right decision if you decide to leave that's the right decision.
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But if you're intentionally or subconsciously creating pain for yourself by
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beating yourself up or saying, I should be better, I should be better,
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I should be better, let's just get really curious about that. Why?
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Why should you be better? Why are you weaponizing this?
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And another reflection, I only had an hour-long meeting with this person.
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So the fact that all these thoughts and ideas came up means I need to continue
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to talk with this person.
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It's so fun when you meet someone and you just tap right into all the inspiration that is there to be had.
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But I think the other reflection I had in this conversation was also understanding
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that in my career, in the past,
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I always used myself as the negative common denominator.
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So the fact that I was in so many organizations where I was really hitting up
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against, you know, I'm using the term glass ceiling, but I think I'm using it
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in the non-traditional sense, not a glass ceiling,
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meaning women reach this point and there's no opportunity for leadership on that ceiling.
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Usually what happened to me was I would be, I would be able to see based on
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what the team was bringing to me, where the gaps were in the organization,
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like where there were bottlenecks and roadblocks to people doing their best work.
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So I've always been in this position of basically assimilating feedback from
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a wider team and then trying to bring that feedback forward to foster changes in an organization.
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And depending on who you're bringing those opportunities to,
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whether it's board of directors or a C-level team, whoever those decision makers are.
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It's not always easy to make the feedback resonate with them because sometimes
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it's in a different language, meaning it's the project level work that those people never see.
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And so all they care about is profit.
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I mean, that's a true statement. I'm not saying that to be rude,
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but in a capitalist business, profit margins and profit are very important to
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a board of directors or a C-level team.
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And so if the project level feedback coming in does not connect from that level,
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we can't see clear reasons why we need to make shifts based on profit margins
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and things that are important to those higher level teams.
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The shifts just will never happen.
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And because there's just not the same emphasis on, well, people need to be happy in their work.
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We need to remove roadblocks. We need to give them the support they need to
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be able to do the best work because that's where the money is coming from.
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Sometimes there's just not that connection being made.
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And I've always really focused on the people and their experience and the culture
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and how when that's thriving, it's a well-oiled machine and the work is going
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out and it's good work and clients are happy and therefore there's more money.
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It's just not always heard.
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So in my career, I've been in this place of advocating, advocating,
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advocating, and I hit my head against the wall a lot.
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And in my career, I always thought, well, I'm a failure.
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I haven't been able to make the case appropriately.
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They're not hearing it. They don't want me to bring this stuff forward.
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They just want me to stay in my lane. Why can't I?
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Why can't I just stay in my lane. I should be able to just stay in my lane.
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I should just be quiet. Why do I care? Why am I leaning into this?
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What's wrong with me? Something's wrong with me. I need to change.
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I need to get smaller. I need to be quiet.
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I need to stop leaning into this part of like, you know, maybe my vision isn't
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the right vision. And why do I keep telling people they need to change?
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And why do I keep trying to change organizations? And why can't I just be quiet?
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So I spent like 20 years just in that space of like, I suck. I'm a piece of shit.
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Like, what's wrong with me? Why am I doing this? And it was interesting,
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like over the past two weeks, I went into this like old wound.
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I basically went into this old space of like, something is wrong with me.
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I should just be happy with the fact that people aren't, the feedback's just not going to land.
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It's fine. It shouldn't matter.
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But it does matter. It does matter to me because people are in pain.
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That's always what it boils down to. If people are in pain, I feel like there's
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a responsibility of an organization that's creating that pain.
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And I know that I often separate circumstance from story, but there are circumstances
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100% where the culture is holding people back.
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It's not a culture of collaboration
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or it's not a culture of support or
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it's not a culture of coaching or
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right so the the culture of the organization can
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absolutely keep people from doing their best work so if I'm seeing pain I want
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to course correct for the pain and I think that's why I'm so committed to making
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the shifts making the helping organizations make those shifts because I'm seeing pain.
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And to me, there's no reason for it. There is 100% no reason for people to go to work and feel pain.
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Now, there's the pain of the work, which might be it's difficult work to do, right?
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So we go to the gym, we might feel pain because we lifted weights and then we're sore.
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And that's good pain, right? There's the pain of this is tough work.
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I got to get through it. The work itself is hard.
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And then there's the pain of this culture is destructive. This culture is not collaborative.
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There are managers who just put up roadblocks for no reason.
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There's pain that is so completely unnecessary.
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So if we're creating the pain, like if I was going into those organizations
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as an employee saying, I'm terrible, I'm terrible, I'm terrible.
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I just need to be smaller.
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I was creating pain for myself. That was on me.
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I had the choice to either try to make the shifts that were going to remove
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the pain from the collective, right? Not just my pain.
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But if I was collecting these proof points of where there were pain points and
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it wasn't being heard, I have a couple of choices, right?
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I continue to try to nudge and see if there's room or I leave, right?
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And I think that's where I never really gave myself the grace of leaving was
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exactly the right thing to do.
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I was in an organization where I was in a very strong position of advocating for the team.
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And when I gave notice at that organization, the CEO was like,
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you're making the biggest mistake of your life.
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And that was just a reminder of how that culture was basically golden handcuffs,
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right? Like, hey, we're giving you money.
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We're giving you opportunity, you should just be quiet and take it.
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And I was like, that's not my mission.
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My mission is to remove people's pain and make the organization thrive.
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Because it's so possible when you listen to what people are saying,
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and you listen to their feedback, and you try to find those support points.
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There's so much opportunity and so much potential, and it's not being fostered.
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And I've tried to do all the things I could do. I've tried to go through all
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the paths. I've tried to be open. I've tried to do it this way and do it that way.
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And there was literally nowhere else for me to go.
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So when the CEO said that to me when I was leaving, I was like,
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yes, this is a complete affirmation of why I'm leaving.
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Because if she would have come to me and said, we really value your work.
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We really value the fact that people trust you enough to tell you what their pain points are,
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we really appreciate that you're always bringing those things through and you're
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always trying to improve the organization and you're not staying quiet and you're
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bringing things forward and trying to work with us on these things.
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We really value that. We don't want you to leave.
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That's the kind of culture where I would have thrived. We appreciate you.
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We appreciate your work. You need to stay rather than someone going,
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you're making a mistake.
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Well, no, actually I'm not because I'm feeling pain and I'm not willing to feel pain anymore.
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If you want to help relieve the pain, great.
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But I'm not going to feel pain so that you can have more money in your pocket
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so that there's more money for you on the table, but the rest of us are basically
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your slaves. That's not okay.
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So there are places where I was creating that pain in myself, beating myself up.
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And then there was obviously some pain within that culture because there wasn't
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the openness to make the shifts that needed to be made for the rest of the people
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to feel a relief and to not have to feel unnecessary pain.
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So if you're creating a necessary pain for yourself, if you're telling yourself
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you're a failure, just be curious and aware of that.
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Because it might put you in a space where you can't do your best work,
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where you're making yourself small to fit in rather than leaning into the traits
35:31
that make you feel successful.
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Think now when I bring my feedback to organizations and when I see the openness
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and the willingness to make shifts.
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And not that they're going to make all the shifts that I recommend,
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but just that openness and understanding that people have real pain points. They're feeling pain.
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When companies are like, we don't want people to feel pain, how can we support that?
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There's so much amazing transformation that happens.
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That's what I live for. That's what I do this for. And when there are companies
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that are the right fit from the kind of work that I do.
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It's gangbusters. I mean, the sky is literally the limit.
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There is so much opportunity and potential.
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And me believing that about myself too and the work that I do is fundamental
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to those organizations thriving and not because of me,
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but because there's this openness and collaboration and inspiration and willingness
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to look at pain in a different way. I love that I bring that forward.
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And it makes me sad that I really tried to dampen that in myself for so long.
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It makes me sad that I really thought that was not a good trait when now it's
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literally how I make money.
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And I really do think it's kind of like I have a very particular style and way
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of working and it's not aggressive.
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And it's not, you know, we have to make these changes right now to see profit margins shift.
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It's as a team, we're going to collectively work on shifting and elevating ourselves
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as individuals and the culture and the group at large so that we can get to
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these really grandiose goals that we have as an organization.
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And it's so much more rewarding to do it that way than to create pain.
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That's really unnecessary.
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So I hope that made sense. I was a little bit like talking off the cuff.
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And I know I was going into various places with this, but I hope it resonates with you.
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It's been a really interesting couple of weeks for me.
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And so I just wanted to share that, impart it. If any of you are feeling a similar way.
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I just want to give you that grace and let you support yourself a little bit
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more and not go into these places that are not helping you get better.
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I'm going to leave it at that, and I will talk to you next week.