Four steps to turn failure into fuel | Marc Nudelberg | TEDxBocaRaton

[Music] thank you what if failure had no negative connotations attached to it what would you do differently how would that change your life I'm going to share with you a process to use failure to create positive impact in your life look at any successful Entertainer entrepreneur or athlete they'll tell you their story is littered with failure My Own Story time and time again leads me to

failure yet somehow they all make it back to success somehow I made it to this stage why does that happen are they just more talented than everybody else some but not all are they luckier than everybody else definitely not I can tell you that luck does not sustain success so how do you get great at failing a process a process that develops the three most important

characteristics to dealing with failure courage confidence and resilience at 26 years old I became the youngest coordinator in major division one college football for context there's 119 teams in the country I earned the spot at one of them for the previous eight years I had sacrificed and worked tirelessly to earn my way into the business of college football and when I got granted just about the

biggest opportunity I could get I excelled we finished in the top 20 statistically and although I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water I was proud of the work my teams put together and in my mind I thought I'd put myself in position to become the youngest head coach in all of football we get a week off at the end of the season

I come home to South Florida for some time on the beach to relax and reflect so I'm on the beach with a tequila enjoying myself and I realize I have a missed call from the head coach I can tell you that nothing good happens when the head coach calls you on vacation so I call him back the conversation was short I was fired and I was

shattered cue step one of the process the 24-hour rule I learned it in football and we live by it in our house when failure happens you have 24 hours to deal with it failing sucks and we're not robots so you have 24 hours to deal with that emotion and then it's time to move on we can't ignore that failing hurts but we can't allow that hurt

to affect our Judgment of The Next Step or keep us from moving on step two own it take responsibility for what's happened athletes go back and watch the tape they look for what went wrong in this instance it meant that I had to call the head coach and ask why I was fired it was worse than I expected oh no noodle you did a great job

she's just part of the business what what am I supposed to do with that how am I supposed to explain to somebody that I was fired but it wasn't my fault but see it doesn't matter if failure is our fault it's our responsibility because without taking responsibility for it we point the finger we play the blame game we make excuses and while we're doing that we

blind ourselves to the lessons and the opportunities for growth that are right in front of us and without those opportunities we can't move on to step three which is corrected this one took me a while you see the rule is to build a strategy to avoid making the same mistake again because if you want to be successful we're going to have to try again but if

we try again without correcting it or building a plan to avoid it we are guaranteed to fail the exact same way and never get off that merry-go-round fast forward three years four schools scratch that reverse it four years three schools and I was fired again for what I decided was going to be the last time in my career it was time for me to get off

the merry-go-round this was an inflection point in my life it was time for me to go in a different direction one that would allow me to continue to bet on myself but not allow anybody else to dictate my value or whether or not I was disposable could I walk away from my dream and the identity I had built for myself as a football coach could I

move my life in a completely different direction could I handle starting over how would I deal with the fear that accompanies that kind of change the three characteristics built through the process courage confidence resilience it wasn't that I was sure it would work that I'd be successful I just wasn't afraid to try and that's step four try again because if we feel it We Own It

We correct it and we try again guess what you're going to fail again this time for something totally different but the more we fail the more we learn the more we build the confidence to believe in ourselves when there's really not much reason to the more we build the muscle we call courage to overcome the fear of trying and failing the more we build resilience to

keep going to have the stamina to take more chances I took a chance at starting over and in reality everything we want and everything we desire is on the other side of a chance if we think about it we know that success takes courage confidence and resilience yet we forget that those characteristics are built through failure and muscles aren't built with one rep Michael Jordan has

a saying a quote I failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed so instead of fearing failure we should seek it out we should allow it to be the Catalyst for our growth and when faced with failure go back to the process feel it for 24 hours own it take responsibility correct it and try again because if you try again

it will lead you to your next success or failure because success is not a destination it's a journey and that journey is going to be marked by tons of failure and that failure is going to have an impact you will either let that failure Define you or you will Define that failure you decide thank you [Applause] [Music]