2023 Journal Entry 002 | Dealing with Failure

I didn't even make it to the second journal entry on time with my original plan of doing one a week.

By definition, that's a failure.

For most of my life, I've struggled with failure. Not because I've experienced it frequently -- quite the opposite actually. I had straight As from 4th grade all the way into my sophomore year of college. I got my first job after my first job interview. And in racing, due to how little I was able to actually race, every race weekend was a major improvement from the last.

Because all of those successes came so easily to me at the time, succeeding became an expectation for me at everything I did in life. No matter how big of an ask it was to succeed.

That's a dangerous mindset to have. Because if you don't celebrate success, if it is just a neutral feeling, then all you are left with is a negative feeling when you do fail.

And nobody is perfect. Everybody fails at things. Big or small.

The important part is to separate an individual failure from yourself. That YOU are not a failure; you just failed at something. One thing. Or maybe a few things.

I used to have that dangerous, toxic mindset. I'm not sure if I admitted that to myself when I was younger, but I can tell you now that looking back that's exactly how I viewed it. Success was an expectation, and the moment that I didn't succeed, I would mentally fall apart.

But, in the same way that 'seat time' in our sport helps you gain comfort behind wheel, experiencing failures and coming out of each failure still breathing is the only way to get used to it.

For example, when we started Kart Chaser, our goal was to upload a feature-length video by the Friday following a race weekend at 8 PM EST. Sharp. For 15-25 minute videos that featured montages, race remixes with narration, various assorted interview clips, and more, that's an extremely tall order. We would spend Friday through Sunday at the track filming, fly or drive home Monday, and then try to cram two 20-30 hours of editing time into Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Sometimes, we would be able to work on that Friday as well, but on back-to-back race weekends, we would already be on-site at the next race.

Essentially, we were working 7-day weeks.

I can't remember exactly which video it was that was the first one to miss our self-imposed upload deadline. I do remember the rush of anxiety that would hit me as the clock hit 8 PM and the comments and messages that would instantly start pouring in asking when the video was uploading, if it was going to come out at all, etc.

But by the second time we missed the deadline, that rush of anxiety was only half as harsh. And half as bad on the third time after that. Over time, I was able to get significantly better at handling the stress, and my mind would have a much easier transition from the fear of failing to the process of both understanding the decisions we made that got us to that point and being able to make adjustments to avoid that in the future.

Truthfully, a lot of the times it just boiled down to overcommitment. Another flaw of mine that I'm slowly trying to get better at both realizing and avoiding each and every day. I'm not perfect. I won't hit every goal that I set for myself. I'm going to fall short at times. But as long as I'm able to learn from each setback, each failure, and find a lesson in it all, then in the end I'm still moving forward.

I put a lot of pressure on myself and our company as a whole to further the sport of karting. Every day that we go to work, I tell myself that we are fighting for every kind of racer. The parent and kid toughing it out on their own as independents. The driver trying to make it enough money or gather enough sponsorship to make it to their next race. The kid trying to use karting as a launching pad to further their career. The business owner trying to be successful in our industry. This industry and community have supported me and our company more than we could have ever asked for. It's hard not to feel forever in its debt.

Having that feeling helps drive me forward each and every day to push myself to and past my limits. To try and find ways to make our sport more sustainable financially and give people opportunities that I never had.

But on my rougher days, it can feel like a burden. And that any micro failure I experience, whether it's forgetting to call someone back, mispronouncing someone's name on a broadcast, or even failing to hit a self-imposed, ridiculous video upload deadline, is me figuratively letting everyone down.

That's obviously not true or fair. Our team does an amazing job. We've progressed and grown in an unbelievably short amount of time. And most importantly, we've managed to learn and grow from each and every one of our failures.

I just need to get a bit better with reminding myself of that. We are doing good. We are making progress. We definitely overload ourselves, but we're working on that. And if tomorrow I am able to deal with failure and overcommitment better than I can today, then that's a success.

Until next time,

Xander