Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / The Art of the Comeback: How to Lose Without Being Destroyed

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The Art of the Comeback: How to Lose Without Being Destroyed · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome back to strategize, adapt, and overcome.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I am brad young, and I am genuinely glad you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: are here with me today. Let me start with a question,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and I want you to be honest with yourself because
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: nobody hears your answer. But you think about the last
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: time you truly lost at something that mattered to you.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: The deal fell through, the relationship ended, The plan you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: poured your heart into collapsed right in front of you. Now,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: think about what that loss did to you on the inside.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Did it knock you down for a while and then
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: teach you something, or did it try to convince you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that you were finished, that you should stop trying, that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the loss was proof of who you really are. Sit
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with that for a second, because the difference between those
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: two responses, the loss that teaches and the loss that destroys,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: is the entire subject of today. We have walked a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: long road together. In this series. We learned the patience
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of the warrior who waits for the right moment. We
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: face the enemy inside our own heads. We learned to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: bend like water when everything changes. We mastered the art
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of the unseen and guarded our intentions with quiet strength.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We learned to read our ground before we ever step
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: into the fight. We learned that no warrior wins alone.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: And last time, we learned that discipline beats motivation every
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: single time. Today we talk about the moment that decides
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: whether any of that ever matters. Today we talk about
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: how to lose without being destroyed. Sun Soux understood defeat
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: in a way most people never do. He wrote that
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. He
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: knew that a setback on the field was never the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: end of the war, only the end of one battle.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: The great commanders did not fall apart when a battle
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: went against them. They studied it, they learned from it.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: They regrouped, adjusted, and returned wiser than before. Losing a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: battle and losing the war two very different things, and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the warrior who forgets that difference loses everything the moment
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: things go wrong. So let us get into it. Here's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the first truth I need you to sit with today.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: A loss is only permanent if you decide it is
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the loss itself, the event, the setback that is just information.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It is a fact in the world. But the meaning
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of that loss, the story you tell yourself about what
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it says regarding you and your future. That meaning is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: entirely yours to right, and most people, when they lose
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: right the cruelest possible story. They take one failed attempt
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and turn it into a verdict about their whole life.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: They take one closed door and decide the entire building
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is locked forever. Think about a boxer. Every great fighter
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: who ever lived has been knocked down. That is not
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the shameful part. Getting knocked down is just part of
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the fight. The whole thing that separates the champion from
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: everyone else happens in the seconds after the fall. The
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: champion is the one who listens to the count, gathers himself,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: gets his feet back under him, and rises. Not because
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: he is not hurt, he is hurt. He rises because
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: he understands something the crowd forgets in the noise. Being
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: knocked down as an event, staying down as a decision?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Which one are you living right now? Are you treating
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: your last loss as an event you can rise from?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Or have you quietly turned it into a decision to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: stay on the canvas? If let me bring this out
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of the metaphor and into a real life, because this
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is where it truly matters. I want to tell you
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a story. I'm going to change some of the details
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to protect the person in it. But this happened, and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: it has stayed with me for years. That there was
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a man I came to know who had built something real.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: He had spent the better part of a decade building
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a business brick by brick, and it had become his
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: whole identity. It fed his family, It gave him his
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: sense of worth. It was the thing he pointed to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: when he wanted to feel like his life had meaning.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And then, through a mix of a changing market and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a few decisions that did not go his way, the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: whole thing came apart, not slowly fast. Within a matter
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: of months, the business he had spent ten years building
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: was gone. Now Here is where the story's blitz, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: here's where you get to watch a man choose his
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: own fate. In those first dark weeks, he did exactly
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: what most of us do. He collapsed inward. He replayed
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: every mistake. He told himself he was a failure, that
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he had wasted a decade, that he was too old
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and too broken to ever build anything again. The loss
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: was not just happening to his business anymore. He had
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: let it move into his identity, and for a while
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: it looked like it was going to keep him down
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: for good. But then something shifted. And it did not
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: shift because a magic burst of motivation came and rescued him.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It shifted because he made a choice. He sat down
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and forced himself to ask a different question. Instead of
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: asking why did this happen to me? He asked, what
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: is this trying to teach me? Instead of asking whose
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: fault is this? He asked, what did I actually learn
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: that I could never have learned any other way? And slowly, painfully,
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  Speaker 1: the loss started turning from a t toombstone into a classroom.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: He realized the collapse had taught him things about his
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: industry that ten years of success never had. He saw
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the weaknesses he had been blind to. He understood the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: mistakes that success had let him hide from, and he
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: took every one of those hard lessons and he poured
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: them into something new. A few years later, he had
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: built again, and this time what he built was stronger, wiser,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and more resilient than the thing he had lost, precisely
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: because it was built on the lessons that only defeat
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: could have given him. Same man, same loss, The difference
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was not luck, and it was not talent. The difference
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was that he refused to let a lost battle become
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a lost war. He got knocked down in for a
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: moment he considered staying down, but then he rose, and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the rising is the whole story. So ask yourself, honestly,
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  Speaker 1: which choice are you making with your last defeat? Are
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: you letting it ride a tombstone? Or are you turning
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: into a classroom Now? I want to break this down
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: into something you can actually understand, because the comeback is
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: not a personality trait some lucky people are born with.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It is a way of thinking, and any of us
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: can learn it. The first thing you have to understand
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is that the meaning of a loss is not fixed.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: This is the stoic idea that changes everything. The philosopher
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: epictetis taught that people are not disturbed by events, but
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: by the views they take of events. Read that slowly.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It is not the loss that wounds you, It is
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the story you attached to the loss. Two people can
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: suffer the exact same setback. One is destroyed by it
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and one is strengthened by it. The event was identical.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The only thing that differed was the meaning each of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: them chose to give it. And here's the part that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: hands you your power back. If the meaning is chosen,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: then the meaning can be changed. You are not at
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the mercy of what happened to you. You are only
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: at the mercy of the story you keep telling about it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So when a defeat comes, and it will, you get
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to decide what it means. You can decide it means
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: you are finished, or you can decide it means you
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: are being educated. Same loss, Two completely different lives grow
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: out of that single choice. And the second thing you
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: have to understand is that defeat reveals what success conceals.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: This is one of the hardest and most valuable truths
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I know. When everything is going well, you learn almost
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: nothing about yourself. Success is a comfortable fog. It hides
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: your weaknesses. It lets your bad habits ride along quietly
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: in the background. It never forces you to look at
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the cracks in your foundation. But defeat rips that fog away.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Defeat shows you exactly where you were weak, exactly what
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you ignored, exactly what needs to change. A loss is brutal,
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  Speaker 1: but it is also the most honest teacher you will
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: ever have since Sue taught that if you know yourself,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: you need not fear the outcome of one hundred battles.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing nobody wants to hear. Some of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the deepest knowing of yourself only arrives through losing. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: defeat that humbles you today is the very thing that
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: teaches you the lesson that wins for you tomorrow. So
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: instead of running from the pain of the loss, you
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: learn to mind it. You dig through the wreckage, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you pull out the gold, the hard truths its success
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: would have kept hidden from you forever, and that The
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: third thing you have to understand is that survival comes
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: before the comeback. This is the part that impatient people skip,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and it costs them dearly. When you get knocked down hard,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: your first job is not to immediately launch a heroic comeback.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Your first job is to not lose the war. In
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: your grief, sin Sue understood the value of a strategic retreat.
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  Speaker 1: He knew there were times when the wise move was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to pull back, protect your remaining strength, tend your wounds,
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  Speaker 1: and live to fight another day. There is no shame
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in the retreat. The shame is only in the surrender.
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  Speaker 1: So when the loss knocks you flat, give your self
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: permission to simply survive. At first, protect your basics, guard
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  Speaker 1: your health, your mind, and the people who matter to you.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Do not make giant, desperate decisions from the bottom of
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  Speaker 1: the pit, because decisions made in panic almost always deep
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in the hole. The Stoics called this the discipline of endurance,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the strength to simply keep standing through a hard season
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  Speaker 1: without breaking. First, you survive the storm. Then, when your
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: feet are back under you, you plan the comeback in
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: that order, always in that order. So let me give
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you something practical to carry out of here today, because
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I never want to just fill your head with ideas
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and send you off with nothing to actually do with them.
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  Speaker 1: Here's your framework for this week. Three moves. Run them
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  Speaker 1: on whatever loss you are carrying right now, and watch
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  Speaker 1: the ground begin to shift beneath you. The first move
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: is to separate the event from the story. Take out
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  Speaker 1: a piece of paper and write down what actually happened,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: just the cold facts, with no judgment. Attacks the deal ended,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the job was lost, the plan failed, just the event.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Then underneath it, write down the story you have been
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: telling yourself about that event. I am a failure that
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I always ruin things that it is too late for me.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Put them side by side and look at them, because
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: once you can see the difference between the fact and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the story, you can finally see that the story was
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: never the truth. It was just one interpretation, and you
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: are free to choose a wiser one. The second move
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: is to mind the loss for its lesson. Ask yourself
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: one direct question and answer it honestly. What did this
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  Speaker 1: defeat teach me that my success never could do? Not
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: rush past it, sit with it until you find the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: real answer. The uncomfortable one, the lesson hiding underneath the pain.
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  Speaker 1: Write down at least one thing you now understand that
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you did not understand before the loss. That single lesson
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: is the gold buried in the wreckage. That is the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: thing you carry forward into your comeback, the weapon that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: only defeat could have handed you. The third move is
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to take one small step back into the fight. Not
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a heroic leap, not a dramatic all or nothing charged
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: to prove you or not beaten. Just one small, deliberate
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: step that says quietly, I am still here and I'm
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: still moving. Make one call, send one message, rebuild one
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: small piece, because the comeback does not begin with a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: giant victory. It begins with a simple decision to get
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: your feet back under you and take a single step forward.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And that one step taken from the bottom is worth
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: more than one hundred steps taken from the top, because
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  Speaker 1: it is a step that proves the loss did not
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  Speaker 1: get to keep you. Separate the event from the story.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Mind the loss for its lesson, take one small step
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  Speaker 1: back into the fight. That is how you lose without
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: being destroyed. Now, I want to say something important before
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we close, because I never want this to be twisted
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: into something that is not. Learning to lose well is
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: not about pretending the loss does not hurt. It does hurt,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and it should do. Not let anyone, including yourself, shame
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you for grieving a real loss. The Stoics were never cold,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: unfeeling people. They felt their pain fully. What they refused
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to do was be ruled by it. There is a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: difference between feeling the weight of a defeat and letting
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: that defeat decide who you are for the rest of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: your life. Feel it, honor it, learn from it, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: then when you are ready, rise from it. Being resilient
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: does not mean being numb. It means being honest about
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the pain and refusing to let the pain have the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: final word. Let me leave you with this before we go.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: The world will keep telling you that losing is the end.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It will treat every failure like a final verdict, every
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: setback like a sentence you have to serve for the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: rest of your days. Do not believe it soon twenty
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: five centuries ago that a lost battle was never a
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: lost war, that in the middle of the wreckage there
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: was always opportunity for the one wise enough to look
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: for it. The stoics knew that the event never had
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the power to break you, only the story you told
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: about it. And deep down in the quiet part of
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you that has already survived so much more than you
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: ever thought you could, you know it too. You have
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: been knocked down before, and here you are, still breathing,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: still listening, still looking for a way forward. That is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: not the mark of someone who is finished. That is
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the mark of someone who rises. The loss you were
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: carrying right now is not your tombstone. It is your classroom.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: It is teaching you something that your future is going
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to need. So do not waste it in shame, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: do not let it convince you to stay on the canvas,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: get your feet back under you, pull the gold out
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: of the wreckage, and take the one small step that
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: turns your defeat into the beginning of your comeback. Because
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the greatest comebacks in history did not come from people
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: who never got knocked down. They came from people who
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: refuse to stay down. And starting today, that person is you.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: So this week, separate the event from the story you
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: have been telling. Mind your loss for the lesson only
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: it could teach you, and take one small, deliberate step
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: back into the fight, not because it does not hurt,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: but because you are the kind of person who rises anyway.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: If this episode reached something in you, do me a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: favor and share it with someone who is down right now,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: someone who needs to hear that being knocked down as
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: an event but staying down as a decision, and that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: decision is still theirs to make. And make sure you
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: follow the show because you are not going to want
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to miss what comes next. In our next episode, we
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: take everything we have built and turn it toward the future.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about vis about how to see
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: farther than the people around you, how to think in
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: years instead of moments, and how the wisest strategists position
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: themselves today for a battle that has not even arrived yet.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Because the comeback gets you back on your feet, but
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: vision decides where you march from here until then. Rise
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: when you fall, learn from every loss, and keep moving forward.