What Michael Jordan’s Inspirational Story Can Teach You About Resilience & Overcoming Failure

Whatever that was for you, well, I want you to remember it.

I want you to bring it to the front of your mind because, well, it's important for today's episode.

Because we are going to do what we do best.

We are going to flip the script on failure, letting you begin to see how, quite honestly, your most epic failure could indeed lead to your greatest success.

It's all inside of today's 372nd episode of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

What we're talking about today, it's not about you living life without failure.

No, because failing is just part of life.

Instead, what today is about is about reframing failure, looking at failures from a different view.

And ultimately, I want you to begin to start learning fast, thinking differently, ultimately turning setbacks into epic comebacks.

Because my friend, failure is temporary.

There's always time on the other side to course correct, to learn from your quote-unquote mistake, your quote unquote failure, and turn it around for something good in your life.

And if you want a real life example of what I'm talking about, who better to illustrate this idea than the one and only Michael Jordan?

Because did you know as a sophomore in high school, Jordan didn't make the varsity team?

Knowing the man that we know is hard to believe.

We would think that, wow, he just was born with massive talent, was extremely talented from the get-go.

But no, he realized he had to put in the work.

But what's powerful about this story is that Jordan used this quote-unquote failure to fuel his success?

He let that light of fire in him.

And we all know the basketball player that Michael Jordan came to be.

And you have to wonder, would that ever have happened if he had not failed?

What would have happened if he did make the varsity team as just a sophomore?

Would he have gained the worth ethic that it took to become one of the greatest of all time?

Who only knows?

But I have to believe, with the way the story went, that it all played an important role.

That failure reframed into success.

And that is exactly what I want for you.

So as we continue, which I'm gonna have another real life example for you that hits home close to me, is well, I want you to realize that failure, it's part of the journey.

Failure is part of success.

And that is because each time that something goes wrong, each time that we fail, it gives us an opportunity to learn, to grow, to sharpen our sword a little bit more.

It helps us to become better at whatever it is that we're doing.

If you never drop a pass, then you're never gonna learn how to catch it better.

If you never fall off of the bicycle, well, chances are you're never gonna be very good at riding it.

If you never fall, if you never stumble, then my friend, I'm telling you, you're not gonna become the best that you can be.

And that is the truth with all of life's quote unquote failures.

Whether it's a failed relationship, whether it is a failed career, you were fired, you quit, you gave up on it.

All of it, my friend, you may think of it as a negative, but if you begin to see life from a little bit different view, if you hopefully begin to see life through my eyes, then you begin to see the good even in the midst of the bad.

And the best way for us to do this is for us to reframe, to redefine failure.

What I want you to do is to begin to see failure as a plot twist.

And the reason I chose the term plot twist is because that's exactly what they are.

It's not a failure, it's not an ending, it's a twist in the plot.

It's nothing more than an unexpected turn in your story that's gonna lead you maybe in a different direction.

It's going to have you getting on course where you're truly meant to be.

Because, my friend, I believe fully that life is not happening to us, but rather life is happening for us.

In each failure, each thing that doesn't go right, well, I have to believe that it's all for a reason, because it's just trying to direct you to where you're meant to be.

So, what I want you to gain is the idea that as you go through life and as things go wrong, everything goes sideways, you fail.

I hope that you begin to slow down.

When things go wrong, I want you to just take a pause.

Whether it's right then or it's later that night when you're laying in bed, and all you can think about is what you did wrong, how you failed today.

Instead, I want you to begin to look at it from a different angle.

I want you to ask, what is the lesson here?

What can I gain from this?

What can I take away?

How can I grow?

Why did this happen for me?

Not why did this happen to me?

But the important question to answer is why did this happen for me?

When you begin to look at the challenges, the failures in this way, you begin to see opportunities hidden inside of them.

Again, as I said, the theme here is life happening for you, not to you.

And I'm even talking about the bad stuff.

As I mentioned, I have another example for you: something that is close to home.

Failure is not the end.

Instead, it's just a twist in the plot.

In spring of 2020, so many of us, the entire world, had our lives completely turned upside down.

And the fact is, well, I was just the same.

I had been a travel agent for the previous seven years, building a brand, building a company, designing luxurious honeymoons for my couples who I worked with, to planning big cruises for churches.

I did all of that for seven years.

And of course, as you would expect, 2020 was going to be my best year ever.

I had so many trips on the books, had so many more prospects in the channel to be booked.

It was going to be an incredible year for my business.

And then, of course, March of 2020 came, and we all know the story.

The world shut down.

The pandemic was running wild.

And in essence, for a travel business, everything ended.

Every trip I had on the books was canceled.

Every idea or plan I had for how this year was gonna go was crushed.

Now, here's the takeaway is that sometimes you have to have a door shut in order for you to find a new door to open.

For myself, I would never be here.

I would never be talking to you here on this podcast if it wasn't for that twist in the plot.

If I had never had everything wrecked and my travel agency completely destroyed, I never would have started this podcast.

Because there we were in the height of pandemic, locked away in quarantine, and I found the time to invest in this new idea of starting a podcast.

Now, what I didn't know was where that podcast would go.

I honestly, I still thought I was gonna be a travel agent.

It wasn't until I started the podcast, until I actually opened the new door and walked through it, that I discovered a whole new world and a whole new part of myself, a whole new dream that I didn't even know existed until I had the courage to open the door, to walk through it, to discover what might be lying on the other side.

And here's the thing: starting a podcast has been the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life.

When I went blind back in 2003, my life as I knew it was destroyed.

Everything I loved was taken from me.

And to be honest, I didn't understand why this would have to happen to me.

Why would God make me blind?

Why would He take away the very idea of being able to see myself in the mirror, to be able to see the faces of my loved ones?

And yet, even something as traumatic as that, it was a plot twist.

It was up to me to be able to find good in it.

And starting a podcast, my goodness, did it help me to discover another amazing blessing in it all?

I am able to be here today, bringing you the insights that I've gained, the lessons I've learned over experienced tremendous loss, but also in taking a failure, an epic plot twist, and turning it into something good.

Because my friend, I am here to tell you that if I can find good out of becoming blind, if I can find good out of having a business I had created, had built, had poured my life and soul into for seven years, if I can find good in all of that, then my friend, I encourage you that you can do the same.

I'm not saying that it's easy.

I'm not saying that my situation was any tougher than yours.

No, I don't doubt that you have more going on in your life than I ever have.

But I'm here to tell you that if I can do it, if I can find good and the bad in my situation, then I promise that you can too.

Now, to help you along this way of trying to find the good and the bad, to reframe failure, it starts when failure happens.

I mentioned earlier, when a situation goes awry, instead of you immediately breaking down, spiraling into that horrible thing of why me?

What if?

What could I have done better?

Instead, I want you to just pause and begin to reframe it.

Again, asking yourself that powerful question: why did this happen for me?

Not why did this happen to me, but why did this happen for me?

What am I supposed to learn from it?

Why did this happen?

What am I supposed to gain from it?

Because I guarantee you there is something hidden inside of this failure that is meant for you.

My second step is for you to begin to look for new doors.

Find a door that's maybe already slightly opened.

It's begging you to give it a try.

Because when failure happens, it gives us a chance to try something new, to try a different door.

As long as you have the courage to push it open.

This is your opportunity, is when failure happens.

It's your opportunity to try something new.

And my third tip for you is when this does happen.

And like I said, failures are epic and they're also just minor.

They're little things throughout the day.

We all experience them.

But what I want you to do is look back and see how you have overcome, how you have grown.

Maybe you didn't even realize it at the time, but you were already adapting and overcoming.

You were already reframing your failure without even realizing it.

So I encourage you to look back on life, to look back at what you've learned from the mistakes you've made.

I encourage you to see, huh?

Maybe Kevin is right.

Maybe all those things that I viewed as a negative, which, yeah, it doesn't mean that they were positive, but I did learn from them.

I have become a better version of me because of them.

I encourage you to spend the time to reflect, to think back.

Because I guarantee you, my friend, it's going to help you as you continue on with life, when you experience more ups and downs, when you have more failures.

So, my friend, as I wrap up today's episode, I want to remind you, maybe another way to look at failures is as stepping stones.

Each stepping stone you walk on is another failure, another mistake, another thing that, oh gosh, we all wished didn't it happen, but it did.

And it's part of life, and that's okay.

Because it's getting you to where you're meant to be.

It's a stepping stone leading you to exactly where you are meant to be, my friend.

This is for you.

Life is happening for you, not to you.

So let me end with this, my friend.

The things that we view as negative, there's actually a positive hidden inside.

Each fall that we have, well, there is a reason for it.

And there is something that we can learn from it and we can take away and we can grow bigger because of it.

My friend, as I have said multiple times in today's episode, everything in life, even the bad stuff, it's happening for you, not to you.

So with that mindset, I encourage you to begin to look at things from a different view, reframing your failures into success.

Until next time, my friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

And this, of course, was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

If today's episode resonated with you, made you think of somebody, it would mean the world to me if you would share today's episode with that friend, with that person, with somebody who you think man, they could really benefit from hearing what Kevin has to share.

With that said, I'm out of here.

I will see you in our next episode.