Aim to Fail

If you would’ve asked me the day I got sober what I wanted in life, I would’ve said,?“I just want to see my kids and not drink anymore.” But I would’ve been lying, kind of.

I knew that getting sober and seeing my kids would not happen. To see my kids, I would have never drink again, and I’ve been down this road 100 times. It's not going to work. It never does…

I recently listened to a speaker talk about how most people, investors, and even businesses know what they sell or what they do. Most even know how to sell or do business better than others. But what most people, investors, and companies don't understand is Why? Why do they exist? Why should anyone care about them? Why did you get out of bed today?

I knew what I had to do to get sober and get my kids back in my life in the past. I learned how I was going to do it. But the why was gone. It was gone because of all the failures. Every time I tried to make anything of my life or get sober, I had utterly failed. My Why was gone. This had been building up my whole life, even before drinking. The first time I remember failing was in 7th grade when I tried out for Theater. The first round consisted of singing Happy Birthday to a couple of drama teachers, and I nailed it. It was easy since I knew the song by heart, and I’ve never really had trouble performing in front of others. When I showed up for the second round, I was handed a script to memorize. I freaked, and it was my turn within minutes of receiving the words. I bombed and was not selected. I never showed my face in an audition again.

Until three years ago, I could name 1000 times something similar to the theater experience in my life. Failure. I felt like I was the only one. This, in turn, developed the mentality to either not try, or try until I knew someone was better or I failed, so I quit. Cub Scouts, school, football, hockey, work, father, friend, and sobriety. Everything.

The day I got sober, those feelings were no different. The thought?“When is the day coming where I ruin everything?” haunted me for a long time. But something else happened that day that I cannot explain. My Why came back with feelings. My gut, my spirit, me. Something changed that I still to this can't explain. Many thoughts ran through my head that hadn’t been there in a long time. I realized that day that I had a ton of failures, but for some reason, on that day, they meant something else. They suggested I was alive. They told me I was trying. They indicated there was still a chance. No matter how many times I had failed, I still had room for one more. Failure meant so much more to me that day than it had ever. That day, no matter what, I was Aiming to Fail. Which means no matter what, I was going to get back up again. I knew failure would come in many ways, but I’ve been through so many of them that it didn’t matter anymore. No matter the roadblocks, detours, traps, shut doors, it couldn’t stop me. Because I’m still here. I’m Still Here.?I’m not a failure; my success is taking a while.?

So to test my thinking, I tried a couple of things I usually wouldn’t have done. One was applying for jobs I knew I couldn’t get due to my lack of experience and my felony background, and homelessness.

Side note: When I was in the courthouse the other day pitching my idea of bringing reformed criminals that are not leaders in the community into the jail and helping inmates learn marketable skills… one of the employees of the courthouse said this to me?“Adam, I define success as, If you love what you do, you’re successful” Well, I didn’t say this to her, but I should’ve said, I love everything about my life, especially the failures.