How Constant Failing Sets You Up for Success
How to Fail Your Way to Success with Josh Spencer
He used to be an out of work, drowning in debt, actor. Who was so broke he passed out chocolates as a job in New York Times Square. Now, he is a financially fit husband and dad living a kick ass life of travel and fun, and will never have to punch a time clock again. Delivering only the best business tips to the pros. Buckle your chin strap, you just stepped into training camp with Coach Jimmy.
Jimmy: On this episode of Training Camp with Coach Jimmy, former athlete turned home business millionaire Josh Spencer is gonna tell you how to fail your way to a kick ass life. Stay tuned.
Jimmy: What was it about this business that made sense to you or that were there parallels to what you did as an athlete that served you well in a home business?
Josh: It’s interesting because I talk about this a lot, but baseball is probably one of the main reasons why I am today with the business. I mean you look at baseball as a sport and you think about what is it made up of? What makes baseball baseball? It’s the combination of failures, right? A great hitter hits .300, right? Three out of ten times they get a hit, but seven out of ten times, they fail. They strike out, get a ground out, fly out, pop fly, whatever and…
Jimmy: That’s just business dude.
Josh: You know, but on an even higher level. When I look at this business and I look at where I am today, what has gotten me to where I am today is a combination of failure. It’s not like successes. There are very few successes, right? Very, very few successes. It’s a combination of thousands and thousands of failures, but the one thing about and the one thing I learned at a young age and I shared this with you and you’ve heard me talk about this is that I read The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz.
I was fifteen years old and I was playing in a summer league and I was going through a really, really rough time. I was probably going through the hardest season of my entire life with baseball because I was hitting in the hundreds, which is really bad, and I was going into my freshman year of high school and my whole goal was that I wanted to be a starter for a varsity team as a freshman, but I couldn’t get out of my own way, right?
I didn’t know how to deal with failure and there was a certain moment to where it just all came up on me and I remember specifically it was a double header and I struck out three times in a row and I kept taking that failure to my next at bat. I never made an adjustment and I struck out again and I struck out again and then guess what happened? My coach benched me and I was done. I was benched for the rest of the summer, but after that game my dad introduced me to The Magic of Thinking Big and he told me, “Son, you’re going to read this book and it’s going to change your life.”
I read it probably two or three times in about a two week span and it taught me how to deal with failure. I took everything that I learned in the book and the thing was that I practiced it over time. It’s not something that came instantly for me, it’s something that came over time. It’s like taking those negative thoughts and turning them into positive thoughts is something that’s not going to happen instantly it’s something that’s going to happen as you constantly replace those negative thoughts with positive ones and it takes time to where all of a sudden you’re thinking all positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts. You learn how to deal with failure and you learn how to make adjustments. So I took everything that I learned in The Magic of Thinking Big and I applied it to my business, well not my business…
Jimmy: Eventually though, right? Initially baseball.
Josh: I applied it to my baseball career and I went into my freshman year and I made Varsity, I was the only kid that made Varsity as a Freshman. I started. I got Rookie of the Year in the entire league and you go even further than that, I got a college scholarship. I got National, Regional, and All-Conference honors first team my Junior and Senior years in college and it’s because of my ability to handle failure. When I’m talking to my coaches one of the first things I tell them is that one, you need to read that book, but two, you have to learn how to deal with failure and you have to know what’s going to be coming in this business. You’re going to fail.
Jimmy: It’s inevitable.
Josh: You’re gonna fail, it’s going to happen, you’re just going to learn how to accept it, but it’s not just accepting it. It’s adjusting. What are you going to change so that you don’t make that same mistake next time? So, I have just, thank god my dad introduced me to that because at a young age I learned how to deal with failure, you know? So the combination of failures has led me to this success that I’ve had today.
Jimmy: That’s awesome man, thanks!