This article is about handling failure. It is about dealing with challenges intelligently so ultimately you meet success. It is about emotional mastery. It is about many things, and I believe anyone reading this article will find something they can relate to and use.
Firstly, if you don’t know me, I am a dude from Bulgaria and at the time of writing I am 23 YO. I am in my last year of finishing my bachelor degree in applied linguistics – English with Chinese. So what am I doing with Turkish hammam makers? Well, I am doing an translation job for their construction workers. How come? I am Turkish! 100%!!! And as such, I speak some of the language. Anyway, time for the meat and potatoes.
Or not yet. This needs a bit more introduction. If you haven’t read any of my entries, you need to know I am plenty spiritual. Deep into self-improvement and all that. Like a fetish. Addiction. So I have almost always been in awe with the building that are all around us – frequently thinking to myself “Damn, how are these motherfuckers made!?!?”. Well, right now I am sitting at the construction site of what promises to become a very luxurious building and I have some idea of how it is all done. Best part? I am getting paid to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks universe :*.
So let’s begin with rejection and failure. I have recently realized that I have a challenge with dealing with both. And let’s get clear – rejection is just another form of failure. It is basically failing to get a desired reaction from a fellow human being. So I look back to the last few years and my infatuation with the law of attraction and all of that turns your dreams into reality effortlessly stuff, and I realize it was all due to FEAR. You don’t want to fail pursuing a business idea, so you learn ways to attract success. You don’t want to fail at finding a someone who loves me, so you learn ways to attract them. There’s nothing wrong with this of course, but let me tell you – it doesn’t work.
Well, that’s not true. It works. But it doesn’t work at the level that is possible and at the level that we want it to. Most certainly not at the level it has been advertised that it would work at. Can you relate?
And it is mainly because of our fear of failure and rejection. You think to yourself… I want this money. I want this relationship. I want this, I want that. So you start attracting it, right?
All the right thoughts, all the right feelings. Anything but action. Anything but asking that girl out. Anything but following that business idea. Anything BUT something that will expose you to potential failure or rejection. So what happens? Nothing. Or almost something. You get there half-way. And you have to be grateful for that, right? That’s what it says in the book. Be honest with yourself. Think. You have been trying to attract a shit ton of fun stuff, big stuff, amazing stuff. If you are honest with yourself, and if you have manifested anything using whatever form of law of attraction you practice, how many of them just fell into your lap?
And so I looked back at all the successful people, be it financially, relationship wise, spiritually… these are the people who get rejected like crazy…who fail like crazy… I do not know many law of attraction teachers who are billionaires…do you? And even if there are some, they have embraced what this article is about…
Let’s get back to the Turkish hammam makers. I meet these guys. Two people. Both older than me. Doing this job for years and years. One of them is the usta (master), and the other is his chirak (assistant/apprentice). What they are supposed to do is put the already prepared marble stones in their place, glue them and cement them. Whatever it is that they gotta do, right? The marble stone pieces are all cut according to the project, they just got to take them out of their boxes, place them, and they are done…supposedly.
The first thing that happened when they saw their stones was disappointment. They look at the room that is supposed to become a hammam, take the measurement of it, then they look at the already cut marbles and start complaining to each other. Because the stones they have will not fit.
And here’s the cool part. They then get to work… THEY GOT TO WORK. They didn’t scream and shout for days. 1-2 minutes of just commenting on their misfortune and then they got on with their job. The whole process of making the hammam is very complex from my point of view. Everything has to be symmetric. Everything has to fit perfectly. But do you know what happens during the process? Failures. Wrongly cut stones. Not matching angles. Do you know what they do then? They take their little cutting machine and cut it correctly. The project leader tells them that something is not quite right…and they adjust it. They change it! And ultimately, if they can’t fix up a piece of stone so it fits, they take another and cut it until it does. Isn’t this weird?
To me – it was weird. I had never seen something like this.
They had a plan and sequence of how they would get the job done. However, there were some essential pieces that weren’t there – someone from packing had forgotten to include them. You know what they did? They called their headquarters in Turkey and got the missing pieces of marble sent to them. They had to change the whole sequence of how the hammam is build. But the job needed to be done… so they went back to work.
Some of you are wondering why I am sharing this with you. Because this is the exact attitude that wins in LIFE. The attitude that succeeds. As I am writing this, it is now day 5 of their work, and their part in the hammam is almost done. It looks absolutely fantastic. And you know who did it? They. Despite “failures”, despite wrong measurements, despite problems with delivery. And there are couple of things that they did which made them successful. And guess what? They did not use the law attraction. They probably don’t know anything about it. If I told them about it they’d look at me like I am a maniac. But regardless of that, they created something beautiful. They achieved their goal. So what made them successful? Here it is:
- Dealing with disappointment intelligently. – When their expectations, or rather hopes, were not met, they did not start crying, fell into a depression and got wasted away…. No. They gave it a comment, a minute of their life, and went on with their work. Do you think if they dealt with disappointment the way you do, they would have successfully finished the hammam? Wasting hours, days, and ultimately giving up just because something didn’t happen the way you hoped it would? They would never have finished it. Or maybe they should have just visualized everything perfectly for a couple of days instead of taking action. Maybe everything would have been fixed all by itself then? Fuck no.
- The way they dealt with supposed failure – sometimes they failed to make the correct calculations, sometimes they failed to cut a stone perfectly – but their response was always either to adjust, change their approach, or begin anew. Do you think just because they didn’t cut a stone perfectly, or they didn’t take a measurement 100% correctly, these people begin having thoughts like: “I am a failure”; “This always happens to me.”; “I can never take measurements correctly.”; “I can never cut stones the correct size…” – these are called generalizations by the way and we are all guilty of them. So if they had thoughts like these would they ever finish their job? Not in a million years.
- Being able to separate life and work, while finding ways to enjoy both. Being able to laugh. They were always joking around and humming a tune. And when it was time for lunch, they stop and enjoy the food. That’s it. They don’t think about the hammam all day and all night, wallowing in worry about potential problems. When they work, they work. When they rest, they rest.
And guess what? They are successful. Now what if you had that attitude towards an area of your life? Relationships…work…family…career…business…
Not taking things personally, always adjusting to the current situation, always taking action and trying new things, and doing it until you get what you want. What do you think? Would you be more successful?
P.S. This article was written in the 2016, springtime. I am publishing it in 2017. So yeah, I have now graduated and am a bit older. Just one year. I swear I don’t look it. At least when I am not flaunting a beard. A note from the 2017 me: Do not get me wrong. I am not against law of attraction and all that comes with it. Far from it. I fucking practice it. But still, I am making a good point in this article. As I am editing this and rereading it, it makes me realize that I myself went down the rabbit hole of just attracting shit, without taking action. Granted it still works, but it is only because I have refined my technique much more than before. But action has tremendous power, and if you want shake the world and make some crazy dreams come true, you gotta grow some cojones and learn to take it in the jaw. And laugh. Failure and rejection are part of life. If we want to embrace life, we have to embrace them too.
And check out my other stuff too, I post some weird, crazy but also useful shit. You’ll love it. Well, maybe you won’t. But you just might. Are you gonna rob yourself of that opportunity? Take a chance. XOXO. And leave a comment. It makes me happy. Actually I already am. But you might make me happier. Thanks.