“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without the loss of enthusiasm,” that’s Churchill by the way, not Sterling Terrance Hospedales but they more or less are on the same page. With over 8 years of service under his belt as a decorated infantryman for the United State army, Sterling Terrance Hospedales sits down and gives us the skinny on one of today’s youth’s biggest fears.
“Failure, most kids are simply shocked into paralysis by the idea that they might fail at something,” Sterling Terrance Hospedales tells us. “It’s an incredibly damming phenomenon.”
A recent study performed in New Zealand by psychologists, led by Professor Covington, came up with some rather interesting insights. “The study,” Sterling explains, “basically discovered that failure in most cases had a cumulative effect. Most people, since they can’t positively redefine failure, unconsciously aim to fail. If a person doesn’t believe they can succeed then that person, regardless of their background or education will engage in practices that seek to preserve this status quo. In other words, failing is part of their self-worth.”
Sterling Hospedales, who runs an active and dynamic mentorship program in Seattle, WA, and has helped over 75 young men, tells us this phenomenon is highly endemic in today’s culture and youth. “Kids have been taught by the media, by their feeds, that things ought to be simple. Today’s creature comforts have taken away our capacity to experience sacrifice and with its perseverance. Thanks to tech, knowledge, training, health, and all those things are obtained easily. And when life intrudes, and something goes wrong, we simply short circuit. We don’t have the resilience to face it. We think there’s something inherently wrong with us.”
Most highly functioning, ambitious, successful people understand that failure builds character. It empowers you. It helps you grow as an individual. Today’s psychologists have all, more or less, concluded that one of the marks of a well-rounded individual is how they endure failure — how they deal with it. Nevertheless, one of the biggest issues of today’s youth is fear of failure.
“Most kids think that if you fail at something it means you’re a loser. They fail, and pardon the pun, to understand that stumbling or having a flop is not a measure of their worth as human beings — it’s not a reflection of who they are.” Biggest tip, Sterling Hospedales tell us to deal with this issue? “Redefine failure. It’s important to focus on what it’s teaching us, what we are learning from it. It’s good to feel frustrated, what isn’t good is to feel afraid or defined by failure.”
