Hello again and welcome to another special episode of the conversations with Coach’s podcast lessons edition. This is me, Kevin, talking to you today about one of my very favorite things that happens in just in just day to day life is when I have a foundational concept or a famous quotes or question that I really always like, flipped on its head. So like, how inflammable and flammable mean the same thing? Or was it irregardless? And regardless, English is a strange language sometimes different words mean exactly the same thing even though they appear to mean opposite things. Really funny that I would think about that. Now, I didn’t premeditate that it’s popped into my head weird grammar guy that I can be sometimes. But I recently had a question that I was quite familiar with something that a good like guiding question like a priming question, a prompting question, flipped on its head and framed in a way that at first glance appears to be opposite or opposing, but that really teased out some of the same kind of kind of answers for me. I was gonna say it knocked my socks off. I mean, didn’t didn’t knock my socks off. It didn’t change my life. Although I don’t know, the jury’s still out, I’m still living. So we’ll see what happens. But anyway, I love a good concept flip, especially when it’s something that I’ve had with me for a while, because it just reminds me that sometimes even something as simple as like walking down the street in a different direction, you just see things that you just had no idea where they’re, but just just because you’ve been walking the same direction for however many days, months years, taking a very personal example. I’m a champion Walker, I’d one of those things. I’ve been old already for 20 years, and I’ll be I’ll be old again another 20 love going for good walks out in the brisk fall air anyway, enough preamble, I want to deliver first the question that I’ve I’ve had with me for a number of years, and I forget exactly where I found it. I know. It’s, it’s something that I probably first encountered it in like a Tim Ferriss book or something like that. And I’m sure he got it from somewhere else. Because he’s a great borrower of greatness, I think.
But the question is, what would you do if you knew you could not fail? And it’s one of those questions that’s designed to get you to think about and speak on the things that matter most to you, what would you do if you knew you could not fail? And what you’re doing by asking that question, essentially removing the specter of rejection or failure, or any of the negativity, or, or status hits or reputation hits that might come with that in your head. And get past that, to get to what really matters to you, what really, really drives you what you’re really passionate about what you really maybe shouldn’t be doing with your life. And I had this quote flipped on me with just a simple a simple flip. But it just got me got me thinking about it the same thinking about the same things think about my life in the same way, but like from a different perspective. So let me ask that question. Again, with a slight modification. What would you do if you knew that you would fail? If failure was a certainty? What would you do then? That’s a different question. And it starts me out thinking different thoughts. But it feels almost almost like I’m going in the same direction, almost like I have a compass. And the terrain is a little bit different with this question, but I still feel like I’m heading to North, if you know what I mean. That might be a strange analogy, but I still feel like I’m heading in the same direction. Even though my reactions, my gut, my the stirrings, in my mind, in my heart feel a little bit different. When the question is, what would what would you do?
What would I do if I knew that I would fail? If failure was a certainty? And again, it gets me thinking about, Okay. What if I can just set aside the possibility for failure or rejection or any of the attendant negative consequences perceived or otherwise that come with that? What if I have to embrace them instead? What do I look like on the other side of that? What have I chosen to do? That was so important to me that I was willing to, from from jump from step one, embrace failure as a certainty with everything that might do to me internally and externally, with all of my baggage coming with it. And again, it’s got me thinking about what matters most to me. It got me thinking about the same kinds of things, but it really got me looking at it a different way. It made me feel different down in my guts and in the like, the balls of my feet and my armpits like it’s good, Lou and Kyle, my shoulder, I gotta roll my shoulders a little bit. When I think about what would I do if I knew that I would fail? Please, kind of unsettled me in a way that I find to be I’m finding to be very, very interesting, very useful. It’s good to have those kinds of unsettling things, I think, and I, I wouldn’t share this with you if I didn’t think at least some of you, if not all of you would agree, at least in some way. That unsettling is a very important aspect of the coaching process. You really sometimes have to overturn or at least set aside or maybe move Through or shake up in some way. preconceived notions, obstacles, baggage, things being held on to, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, I loved this example of a simple question flip. That just really got me thinking unsettlingly and excitedly about things I thought about often, but not quite like that. Not quite like this.
So I wanted to share with you. Yeah, I think it’s it, it’s still I’ve actually, uh, I think it’s gone up on the whiteboard, I think I might put both of them up there. Because I think contemplation of the consequences of failure and rejection, and a remapping of the circuitry that guides my emotions along those lines. That’s a, I’ll put it this way. That’s a lifelong project for me. That has seen great progress, and continues to have more to go. Anyway, I hope I hope you liked that. I hope that could be useful for you. Most of everything that I share in these lessons episodes, the first thought that comes with it is would this help? Like thinking about those of you who I’ve spoken to? or are thinking about the audience? Is this the kind of thing that you’re, you’re kind of already thinking about? Hope so. I think that’s the case. Let me know if it’s not or let me know if it is let me know either way, whether I have succeeded or failed, please take the time to let me know because it it makes me better. It helps me to, to think more clearly. And also to and this was most importantly, to provide more of what might be of service more of a matter. So anyway, what would you do if you knew that you would fail? I’m gonna leave you with that. And I’m gonna talk to you again very soon.
