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Failure is a Gift
“If you’re not failing, you’re not try-
ing hard enough.”
I can’t remember who I first heard
this from or if I should be crediting
someone for that quote. What I can
remember are epic times of failure
in my life. Pivotal moments in history
that have carved from me the very
character I have today. Failures in
sports, school, work, life, relation-
ships; you name it, I’ve failed it some-
how.
Last week I had a kid in my gym
who has been working his tail off in
the weight room. He had it set in his
mind that he was going to deadlift
500 lbs. The week before he pulled
450 lbs, which was a new personal
record and he was dead set on 500. out a victory cry.
He has been wanting 500 for the last
3 years. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t time
yet.
Now, I had a pretty strong feeling
that he was not going to make that
500lb lift. From a training standpoint,
it just wasn’t time. 500lbs doesn’t
give itself to you. The barbell doesn’t
just lift itself because you want to
say you have a 500lb deadlift. Some
coaches may not even let the attempt
happen. With any other athlete I may
not let it happen either. I’ve worked
with this kid for a long time. I know
his body and he knows his body. I
trust him, he trusts me. I also know
that there have been more than a
few times he has performed feats of
strength that I did not think he would
accomplish. So we took the lift.
He failed. The bar barely budged.
He tried again. The bar was flex-
ing like a noodle but the end plates
were stuck on the Earth. Gravity was
strong that day.
This hit him pretty hard. He was
visibly upset. Not mad, angry, yelling
type of upset. Like my girlfriend just
dumped me types of upset. Like my
dog was just hit by a tractor upset.
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By Joe Stewart
Mission 1 Fitness and Performance
No matter what anyone says, that
kid will always remember that day,
that lift, and that feeling. Yep, over a
stupid deadlift.
Now, we will have to see how
this plays out over time, but I have a
strong feeling that this whack with the
humble stick is going to push this kid
back into the gym with a laser type
focus. He is going to train harder
with more attention to detail. He will
evaluate his lifestyle outside of the
gym and his recovery methods. He
will look back at the last training cycle
and wonder missed days or skipped
reps and think if that would have got
him the extra pounds. He will not be
happy again until he lifts that 500 lbs
rack of iron from the Earth and let’s
Then one day this kid is going to
grow up and be one of the adults that
does something in the world. He’s
going to get knocked down by the
random things in life that knock you
down. And he’s going to get back
up and climb higher and higher and
higher. And then one day he will
pass this resiliency on to other kids
and they will do the same.
Moments of failure provide an
opportunity. An opportunity to do a
thorough self-inventory of what led
you to fail. This is pretty difficult for
a lot of people. If you have a big ego
and are an insecure person then it’s
going to be hard to take an honest
look at your own flaws. It’s not real
fun to talk about all of the things
we’re not good at. However, if you
can honestly look at your weak-
nesses and find responsibility in your
failure then you’ve given yourself a
shot to grow as an athlete and a hu-
man. You have laid the framework to
set goals and define tasks to achieve
the goals.
Failure builds resiliency in kids.
As adults, coaches, parents, men-
tors, etc. it is our responsibility to let
our kids experience failure. Teach
them to understand how to evalu-
ate their responsibility in failure and
set goals to prevent that experience
from happening again. In athletics,
especially team sports, it can be far
too easy to point the finger at your
coach, the ref, or teammates for a
loss. I am willing to wager that win-
ning programs have a leader who is
humble and teaches self-responsi-
bility. Resiliency will lead to success
inside and outside of the arena of
athletics. Ultimately, it will lead to
adults that are successful, produc-
tive, and contributing to our world.
If you are a fan of success you
have to fail more often.
Train hard. Train smart.