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Failing Forward – Why Failure Might Be Your Greatest Asset
858 Plays17 days ago
In Episode 16, host Kallie and the crew get candid about failing forward—what it means, why it matters, and how to reframe our relationship with failure. From viral underwear ads and the Dunning-Kruger effect to forgotten lip stains and botched job interviews, this conversation explores how we stumble, what we learn, and how to model resilience for our kids.
We dive into the gender gap in confidence, especially in how women approach risk, perfectionism, and the fear of public failure. Charlotte unpacks how burnout and rejection redirected her to a life she loves, while Kallie shares how a "dream house fail" ended up being a blessing in disguise. Caitlin reminds us that sometimes the only way forward is to be willing to "suck" at something until you get better.
Plus, a special chat with Erica Ligenza of Coming Up Roses and the THRIVE Podcast, where she opens up about her own recipe mishaps, personal growth, and her favorite mantra: “We can do hard things.”
We close out the show with our signature Pits and Peaks segment—because even in a week full of messes, there’s always something to celebrate.
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Transcript
Squirrel Fears and Tourist Encounters
00:00:00
Speaker
No, I don't know guys. She's, she's not as tough as she used to be. She's getting soft. She is terrified of squirrels. Like you would not believe the other day came in the house and goes, mommy, do squirrels have hands?
00:00:16
Speaker
And I said, no, squirrels have paws. She's like, they can't open the door. She's like with her hands. I'm like, no, they can't open the door. And she goes, they're going to come in and eat me. said, no, they're not. They eat nuts.
00:00:28
Speaker
They're vegan. I was always convinced that squirrels were not present in certain continents because if you've ever lived in New York City, the level of tourists just crouched down taking photos of the squirrels.
00:00:41
Speaker
yeah And for us, they're just like land rodents. yeah But they must not be everywhere. I mean, they're super cute if you don't see them on a daily basis. So they must be rare in some places. I got to Google this. Yeah. So ah no squirrels don't live everywhere, but they are found in a wide variety of habitats across the globe, with the exception of Australia, Antarctica, and some other regions.
00:01:04
Speaker
Maybe they're all Australian tourists I'm watching you photograph grab this world.
Host Introductions and Main Topics
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to Just for Moms. I'm Charlotte. I'm Caitlin. I'm Megan. And I'm Callie. We are regular moms. Talking about regular stuff like aging, parenthood, work-life balance, and figuring out what's for dinner.
00:01:20
Speaker
Again. no-judgment zone to talk, laugh, and maybe cry about all the things women think about on a daily basis. The things I'll plan, the things would do. Welcome back to episode, I gotta check my notes, 16, which when I was writing up my notes, I had to cross-reference that like 15 times because it seems not right, but we are. Episode 16, Caitlin, Callie, Charlotte, Megan.
00:01:44
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about a topic that I really like, which is failing, but we're not going to jump into it just yet because I have to ask you guys. If you saw the whole hubbub, which I've already messed with Charlotte's head about this, the Bonds ad.
00:01:57
Speaker
Does anybody else know this? Has anyone else? This has not come across anybody's. I feel really exciting because you guys always know like all the pop culture and you're like chatting about it. And I'm just like silent in the background never going on.
00:02:10
Speaker
So I don't even know the full story. I just saw a few things and I was like, I'm going to know what this pop culture thing is. Then I had to Google it. So Bonds, I guess, is like an Australian underwear company. And the big hubbub is because Robert Irwin, which is Steve Irwin's son, is their new model.
00:02:28
Speaker
And they launched this campaign and it's pictures of him like, I mean, we remember him as like a child, but now he is no longer a child. And so like every millennial woman everywhere is like, oh,
00:02:40
Speaker
okay But I just love that it came full circle because we all grew up with Steve Irwin. Right. And now yeah and I'm saying this and you're all like, no, I didn't. Did you not all watch him? Okay. Yes. Yes.
00:02:53
Speaker
i just didn't know he had a son. I ah thought he only had a daughter. The son is younger. Yeah. Robert, I think. And he's wearing undies. I've seen it all over. Go it out after this.
00:03:03
Speaker
It's everywhere. I feel like maybe he even goes by Bob because I feel like there was like a baby and I remember thinking baby and Bob don't go together, but that may not be right.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah. And Steve's still alive, right? Or no? Oh, Megan. no yeah Oh, shoot. You're right. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. Mom brain.
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, never mind. But did the daughter have a baby? Yes. Okay. See, I got that part right. Okay. I mean, I can understand how you feel that way, though, because i feel like I feel like I see something about Steve Irwin at least every few months.
00:03:39
Speaker
Like he's still present. Yeah, whether it's like a remember when he did this or it's his one of his children showing up. It's like he he lives on. does. He does. He does.
00:03:50
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah, I don't know. God bless. All right. When I was when i was getting you ready for this episode, I found a stat that doesn't really necessarily fit into today's topic, but I thought it was really interesting. so I wanted to share it with you guys.
00:04:02
Speaker
It said that studies have shown that women are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet 100% of the qualifications, while men will apply for a job if they meet only 60%.
Job Applications and Gender Differences
00:04:12
Speaker
sixty percent And so I want to throw it at you guys. Why do you think this is? Like, is it because we're perfectionists? Is it because guys just think like, who cares? I can do it.
00:04:22
Speaker
I'm curious what your initial thoughts are hearing this stat. Megan, what do you think? Okay. I think it's because we follow the rules more. We like to check the boxes and follow directions because, you know, being moms,
00:04:39
Speaker
with our kids. And I feel like maybe men kind of maybe just like brief through it and are like, oh, I'll just wing it and apply where we like are like, oh, have we done that? Have we done that? Did we do like, that's my thought process on it. We're very, like you said, perfectionists and type A. So yeah.
00:04:59
Speaker
Charlotte. I thought two things. The first thing I thought of, and I didn't pull this phrase. I did have to Google it. Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? No. It's this phenomena where basically the less informed or knowledgeable about any one subject is, the more likely you are to like overestimate your ability in that one subject. That makes sense.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. um So that, I don't know, that may be at play. I guess for me, the only jobs that I've ever applied for I don't really have a sense of what the job description is. And so I tend to be like, I'll figure it out. I feel really capable and like can do. So I'm sure there's jobs that I've applied to that I had no business applying to because I was like, I'll figure it out.
00:05:45
Speaker
And you know, I didn't get the jobs, but so maybe I'm more like the men in your study that regard. Fair enough. What do you think, Caitlin?
00:05:56
Speaker
So I had to Google this because I couldn't come up with anything on my own. No, at first I was like, is because we have lower self-esteem? But then I did find an entire article. Harvard did a study and I, to be honest, I didn't read the entire article, but it did say studies show women lack confidence in their ability to contribute and perform perform in stereotypically male fields.
00:06:19
Speaker
and that employers often favor men for jobs in those fields. So women will not apply because it's just known. The article was interesting if I really read it, but it talked about interviewing or like LinkedIn statistics, and it was just done in 2023. So it was pretty pretty current.
00:06:39
Speaker
This ties in a little bit, and I'm going to try to mention this without getting political per se, but Right now, there's a lot of discussion about the merits of DEI and why there should be like proactive hiring and all of the above. and that Is proponent when you're for or against something?
00:06:57
Speaker
Proponent's like a piece of something, I thought. Well, the people who are against it and want it to be gone feel like it's because someone is being hired based on their gender, race, orientation, but they're not deserving of it.
00:07:11
Speaker
And the reality is that for women, for people of color, for other marginalized populations, in order to even get to the same level as anyone else, they have to have worked that much harder to like wade through the minutiae and sort of all of the biases that are just facing them on a daily basis. So it's it ties into this a little bit because as women, to your point about that study, Caitlin, if women don't have the confidence or whatnot, it's for women to even be in that room, they've had to work.
DEI Initiatives and Workplace Challenges
00:07:44
Speaker
twice as hard because of just the landscape to get there. Very true. I guess when I looked at the stat, like I didn't even, I immediately, like I didn't even think of the woman's side. It just immediately was like, what makes men like the 60% of men are those men think that even if they only meet 60%, but I always just think like, I think maybe men are, are,
00:08:07
Speaker
Men are more risky. Like they they tend to be more risk takers in general. So that's all I could really think. I think that we tend to be more ah cautious of like we we tend to be less of a risk taker, which maybe as women we could try to be more and they could maybe be a little. Yeah. Like Charlotte said, she applied to some jobs.
00:08:26
Speaker
She might have them, but she applied. Good for her. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys seen those like memes where it's like men with like three ladders on top of each other? And they're like, this is why men die earlier.
00:08:38
Speaker
It made me think of that. They just like, you know, women, like if you got three women together, they'd be like, we should not stack three ladders on top of each other. yeah Let's find a different solution. Or I saw one the other day about fathers that only have daughters. Have you seen that one, Caitlin, that they live longer?
00:08:55
Speaker
dads that have just daughters, there was this whole like article yeah and I kind of looked through and I was like, okay, fair enough. Maybe. Yeah.
Parenting Concerns and Creative Chaos
00:09:06
Speaker
All right. Who has a mom fail for us? Caitlin, do you have one? Yeah, I just, I, I keep getting really excited because I organized something like we bought a new art cart.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's ah third of the size of the old one. So there's no space for jobs. And within like two days it was disorganized and filled with junk. And I thought it was my toddler, but it was actually my older daughters. And I'm like, how did, this is very easy. There are five drawers and you can see when you open it, what's supposed to be in there. So why is there other stuff in there?
00:09:39
Speaker
So I just, I feel like it's, I get really excited. Like I'm winning. I organized the game cabinet. And then two days later, someone's like sucker and it's just destroyed.
00:09:51
Speaker
So that's, that's my fail. I can't, I'll organize my kid's space and exactly the same setup as you everything. I'm like, this could not be more clear. All of your pens are in the, and then you'll come in and there's like a cup of goldfish, like that's been stored in one and like socks and like, there's clearly a point when they are just scrambling and stuffing. Yeah. Dirty underwear. You never know. Right.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah. yeah It's true. Okay. Do you want to know mine? Yep. Okay. So you know I'm like the sucker of all the things that get thrown at us on social media.
00:10:24
Speaker
So I bought the lip liner peel off lip stain. Have you all seen this? Yes. Where your mouth is like, like it looks like you're dressing up for Halloween, right? Yeah. Okay. It's not for me.
00:10:36
Speaker
Total fail. Does not look good. Like I see all these like beautiful fashion bloggers do it and they're like, look so pretty putting it on and then it peels off in one peel. Yeah, no, it's, it's just, I don't know. I don't know if I put it on wrong. I tried it a few times. I had my, my middle daughter try it with me. Like it got in my teeth.
00:10:59
Speaker
I wish you would do it now. I know. I know. And it seemed like the mouth tape. I was like, you know, because I – Any mouth things. ah Yeah. So it's it's a fail for me, but then my middle daughter took it, and she uses it every day, and it looks great. And she was like, Mom, you have to put it on like at night before bed so then you wake up and your lips are like crisp. You put it on before you go to bed. And I was like, I don't think that makes sense, but okay, sure.
00:11:23
Speaker
So she comes on and comes in at night and leaves it on for a long time. And that's her. Yeah. So anyways, I'm, it's not for me. I don't know if you've all tried it, but it's a fail for me.
00:11:34
Speaker
No. Moving on. I'll take your, take your word on it. Don't. Yeah. It's not for everyone. Charlotte, do you have a fail for us before we, before we jump into our topic of fails? I have a potential fail.
00:11:46
Speaker
So I have a child who decided to sign up for the talent show. And I don't know if you have kids that have ever done this. There's always a moment of like, okay, okay. Jesus, like, here we are.
00:11:58
Speaker
And then the idea for this talent show, i have very deep reservations about whether this can end. Happen? Yes.
00:12:08
Speaker
it it So the child said, we're going to do skit. And I'll say, like, that's on a good day. That's hard to pull off. But when you're talking about elementary school children,
00:12:21
Speaker
even trickier. So that's my mom. I'm sending this child to battle. I have empowered this child with what I hope are notes to be short and and sweet and loud and articulate.
00:12:37
Speaker
And we're just going to see. I mean, to me, that's, it's a fail for you, but it could be, could be magic. Yeah. mean It's a nice segue too. So you're welcome for that.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. I'm actually just going to take it and run with it. Instead of even thinking about what my fail is, I'm sure there's some.
Failure as a Path to Success
00:12:55
Speaker
But yeah, no, today I wanted to talk about failure. Failure is one of my favorite things I've come to realize, but I don't think I always looked at failure in such a positive light as I do now.
00:13:07
Speaker
So I wanted to talk about it with you guys a little bit, the idea of failure as a positive. So going start with a little a little data point as we like to. This is a um stat from Harvard Business Review. It's found that 90% of startups fail, but according to Harvard Business School, entrepreneurs who fail are far more likely to succeed the next time compared to first timers.
00:13:30
Speaker
um And I just, yeah, I like the idea of failure. I feel like in my life personally, all of my biggest strides forward came almost directly after failures because I think that they either teach us lessons or they shape us or they could be a turning point or a pivoting point. So I want to teet off by asking you guys if you have any failures that have happened in your life that you're grateful for. And I'm sure there's more than one, but if there's one that sort of sticks out that you're at the time felt like a failure, but now ah looking back, you're glad that it happened or something that was a failure, but turned out to be a really great lesson that maybe you needed to get, or it was a turning point or a pivoting point. I see everyone's like putting their eyes up. Like they're really thinking somebody raised their hand. does Does somebody have one? I don't want to put anyone on the spot. if They're not ready.
00:14:16
Speaker
Who's ready? Caitlin, go. My most recent failure, which I would be our last show. I felt like that. Like I felt like we, we failed even though it wasn't,
00:14:27
Speaker
our fault and this show came out of it. And in that moment for those 48 hours before we decided we were going to do it on our own, I literally went through my brain of what did I do wrong?
00:14:39
Speaker
Where could I have changed this? This, you know, like this is the worst thing that's ever happened. And then here we are and I'm glad it happened. I mean, that's, that's what came to mind as soon as you said that.
00:14:51
Speaker
I thought you meant our last episode and I was like, whoa. did too at first. Okay. Wow. I thought it was fine. but
00:14:59
Speaker
guess So for those those who don't know, Just for Moms used to be a separate podcast that we were hired on to do and it failed. And so then we've decided to create our own podcast. But I also thought the same thing. I was like, was it bad?
00:15:12
Speaker
Man, that would have been really mean and if I just, after we finished recording, I went upstairs I was like, Brandon, that sucked. That was awful. No, I met our last podcast.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think that's like a perfect example, though, of, you know, failures often being, you were like, what? I was like, don't they want me to talk about this? I could tell by Charlotte's face that she thought the same thing I did at first. I was like, I'm like trying to remember what the topic was. We talk about hats too much.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. What's the problem? Yeah. um No, so that's an example of a failure at the time feeling like a failure, but it's kind of one of those like one door closes, another door opens. But also I think we learned so much stuff from that experience that we brought into this podcast to make it better, which is one of, to me, one of the beautiful things about failures is like you learn so much that you then can take in to the next one.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yes. Megan, do you have a good failure you want to share with us? Yes. so my last job was at Commuto Group in um Greenwich here and i had been there for five years in marketing and 2008 do you remember because I got married that year there was a really bad recession and the finance world in the city here and we had a bunch of friends it was just bad I'm sure you remember Charlotte right 2008 2009 somewhat okay and I just remember it too with the finance world and also my husband is in real estate, and things just started to tank, like left and right. I remember we got married in August, and then literally the – I feel like the market crashed like a week later, and my mom was joking that. She was like, oh, thank God you got married before the market crashed and the recession hit, because those envelopes would have been half.
00:17:05
Speaker
I was like, I didn't really look at it that way, Mom, but – No one's laughing, but that's a mom joke. But anyway, so the recession hit, it was bad.
00:17:15
Speaker
I had been at my job for almost five years. And then, you know, in corporate world, I feel like sales is always high up. And I was in marketing and PR and they started cutting positions because I feel like they always cut marketing and PR first because, you know, we were there to support sales and that's just how it was.
00:17:35
Speaker
And Half of our department got caught. And i feel like we were 10. And then all of a sudden we were like five. Right. And I was still hanging on by like a thread. And I had been trying we had been trying to get pregnant and have our first baby, which we thought would have happened super quick. And it didn't. And it had only been nine months. But the day came where I was let go.
00:17:58
Speaker
due to budgets and just everything. And I was devastated, obviously. And then the next month I found out I was pregnant, but I was still aggravated.
00:18:11
Speaker
Even if it's budget cuts, I don't care that that I was let go. That was a failure to me. I don't, I worked really hard. That was my life. And I remember seeing my boss that let me go maybe like a year later after I had had my first daughter.
00:18:26
Speaker
And she came up to me and I was, you know, she said hello, but I was still a little just, eh, you let me. And she's like, you know, after you left, we really regretted letting you go. We'd love to have you back.
00:18:38
Speaker
And again, Ava was like, I don't know, maybe like nine months old. And I feel like the things, the the economy, the world started to get better, but I just wasn't ready to go back into the fashion world and raise my family. It just wasn't for me at the time.
00:18:53
Speaker
So it felt good that she offered me my position back, but it just wasn't for me at the time. But anyway, so my failure was, you know, letting go, you know, getting let go. My family started and then realizing that that position was still there, which made me feel somewhat good. But still, it's not fun getting let go of a job, no matter if it's budgets or whatever it is. Yeah, I feel like the getting let go from a job or like getting fired is one of those failures that I feel like a lot of people, like people stress about it all the time, if you're like in an in a normal job, like the idea of getting let go. And I always, I wonder if it's the idea of there's public failures versus private failures, like a private failure is much easier to handle where, you know, getting let go, not only is everyone in your life going to find out, right. All of your family, but,
00:19:41
Speaker
all of your colleagues, you know, these are people who maybe you've spent a lot of time trying to, you know, look important in front of, and, you know, this is your livelihood in your career. And so i think that that's tends to be at maybe a harder failure to take on when it happens when lots of times, like you said, it's usually not even, i mean, sometimes it is, but it's lots of times it's not always even indicative of exactly your job and the job that you did.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah. No, I remember my parents because I was super upset. at My dad sat me down when he was like, Megan, sometimes like I've had to let people go. And yeah sometimes it's not that. And again, Kelly, you're right. Being I know how we all are when it's a failure. We want to just jump right back on that horse and get right back at it.
00:20:22
Speaker
So Charlotte, do you have a good failure to share with us? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think it's so hard to label anything as failure when it's in your rearview mirror because you've sort of moved through it. I also think maybe this is a stupid caveat to make, but I feel like all of us are talking about failure with a lowercase case F here. Like none of us have had any dire consequences that have come with our failures. We sit in our homes with our food and our clothes.
00:20:44
Speaker
When I was a teacher, just was restless and i you know i had like week. to I just, I felt like there were things that I couldn't do because of this job that I love. But I also was like, I'm 22 and three quarters. What else is out there?
00:21:02
Speaker
I was a little older, but I moved to New York City and I took a job with someone that I knew peripherally who was like, yeah, you can come and work here. And it was in a completely different field. from teaching and i was not good at that job. I did not like that job. I mean, the person that hired me needs to take a little bit of the responsibility because I didn't really know what I was being hired to do also.
00:21:24
Speaker
Just like showed up at work and, and it just, I was not good at it. I didn't love it, but, having that two years of just sort of apathy and feeling kind of sucky at my job, it did light a fire in my belly. it got me New York City, which I just wouldn't change for anything. And it forced me to realize that I loved being able to make a difference and work with people and feel like I was contributing to society in some way. And that's what forced me to go back to graduate school and get my degree in counseling.
00:21:57
Speaker
And you know ultimately, I ended up back in schools. And I love that while it lasted. So I don't know that any of that would have happened if I hadn't sort of moved into this position that I guess I failed at.
00:22:10
Speaker
Mine is sort of similar to yours, actually. So um I was in so I went to school to be a teacher like Caitlin and Charlotte. I think it's so funny that that's where we all went.
00:22:21
Speaker
But I'd gotten my certification to be an elementary school teacher, moved to Connecticut, got the certification here. And I wasn't getting ah position as a classroom job, but like a classroom teacher, which was, you know, what I went to school to do. So my first year I took a job teaching yeah ESL. So sort of like being kind of like a para, I was, you know, just rehired on every year. And I was like, that's fine. I'll do it for a little while while I, you know, continue to apply to get a classroom position because that's what I went to school to do.
00:22:48
Speaker
And I did that for three years and consistently applied to jobs. I almost never got interviews. Yeah. And I remember probably like my second year in finally getting an interview for a classroom position, like in the town where I was living. And I was like, this is it. Like, this is the one. Cause I could barely get my foot in the door.
00:23:03
Speaker
I mean, couldn't even get anyone to see my resumes. Finally got this interview, went to the interview. ah just bombed it. I mean, like, You know, when you walk out and you're just like, yes, I mean, there's just I mean, that was I wouldn't hire me. I mean, that was a horrible interview.
00:23:17
Speaker
And at the time, it was like the most devastating thing that there was because I had been so i'd spent the last what six years trying to become a teacher and then working in the school system, finally got this interview and then I just bombed it.
00:23:29
Speaker
But basically what ended up happening is having the free time of the summers and vacations off allowed me to start blogging and YouTubing. And it turned into the career that I have now. And I would have never, I probably would have never be, I would never be sitting here if I had gotten that job.
00:23:43
Speaker
So that's like a, for me, a very black and white one, because at the time it seemed so devastating. I remember, do you guys know what Teach for America is? That's basically what I did. So I applied, i interviewed to do Teach for America. I can't remember if it was, i don't think I even had teaching experience.
00:24:02
Speaker
So I applied for this because I don't I applied for it. And the first thing they had me do was basically like role play. and they, it was a classroom management sort of situation.
00:24:13
Speaker
And classroom management is still not my strong suit. I mean, that isn't art, but it was definitely not my strong suit then. And I just remember like, I don't know what I meant to do. It was so bad.
00:24:25
Speaker
And I walked away and I didn't get the job. And then I ultimately did go into teaching and what i have learned or heard, and I don't know, someone's going to be like, that's not true. I would teach for America. I love teaching.
00:24:36
Speaker
Is that a lot of people that go into teach for America, it's arduous and rigorous and it kicks your ass to such a high degree that a lot of people do their two years and teach for America. And they were like, I cannot go into a classroom ever again. This was just too hard, too challenging.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I just remember that because I did ultimately go into teaching. And then I ultimately went into graduate school where I was ultimately a counselor in a school that I would have been a Teach for America teacher.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I, you know, I left when I started to have kids when I had my third kid, but I love teaching. And to this day, I still love teaching. And if someone gave me a teaching position, I might go back into it because I do love sort of being around kids in that regard. To your point, Callie, like if I had been hired to do that, who knows where I'd be right now. I just think it's so funny how in the moment, I mean, i'm I'm at the point now where when failures hit us, like the most recent one was last summer, we were in the process of putting an addition onto our house.
00:25:36
Speaker
um We had paid a lot of money to have like the sew sewer the sewer, not the sewer, what is that thing in the back? The septic. dug up and we paid for architects and like all of this stuff, um only to realize that we weren't going to be staying there. And like, this was really hard for me when I moved into this house, like this was the house that I was going to live in forever. Like I was going to raise my children and I had no plans to leave.
00:25:58
Speaker
And at the time we're like, it felt like I'm not necessarily a failure, but it felt like such a catastrophic thing at the time. and I remember saying to Michael, I was like, this is one of those moments like we've had before where it seems like the worst thing ever right now. And that means like something great is on the other side.
00:26:17
Speaker
And so it's like, that's how I sort of look at that stuff now, but it's hard when you're in it because bringing back Caitlin's point, like when we heard that the other show wasn't continuing, like it feels like such a,
00:26:28
Speaker
a gut punch or whatever, but almost always, you know, there's some, some kernel of something to get out of it. yeah Yeah. Without giving personal details, like we're kind of in this tricky position in our, my family right now.
00:26:43
Speaker
And i keep saying to someone in my life, it's going to work out for the best right now sucks, but So this is all happening and I hate, you know, to do the woo woo, but like, this is happening for a reason, whatever we're going to learn from this in a couple of years, hopefully not that long.
00:27:02
Speaker
We're going to say, okay, well, this is why this happened at the time that it did. And, um, I went to a yoga class a couple of weeks ago where there was a substitute teacher. It's an instructor. I, he's amazing. He just hasn't been at the studio.
00:27:17
Speaker
he has his own studio now. So at the end of the class, closing out before you begin Shavasana and stuff, he had some song playing and he was letting everybody do their own thing. But he said, close your eyes while you do your final, any positions you want to do. And he gave this speech.
00:27:36
Speaker
And I said, I wish that I could have recorded it. But the premise of the speech was, and I'm, hold on, I wrote some of it down. He said, you have to be willing to suck and fail at what you want to do in life.
00:27:48
Speaker
until you succeed, because if somebody just gets what they want first, you know, they get up to the plate, they get a home run right away. That's usually called luck. That's not there.
00:27:59
Speaker
There was no effort behind it, but everything that you suck at and however many times you fail, you're always going learn something from that. So it could be ah a long road. It could be a shorter road, but whatever happens on that road is going to teach you something.
00:28:16
Speaker
And so he just did this whole thing. He's like, and if you want if you get to the end of your life, do you want to look back and wish you had tried that thing? Do you wish, do you want to say, i never did what I wanted to do because I didn't think I was wealthy enough. I didn't think I was attractive enough. I didn't think I was talented enough. Or do you want to just say, i tried my best and I got it or you didn't try at all.
00:28:38
Speaker
So I feel like that's something that I'm just repeating over and over in my mind right now is, okay, you have to suck. You have to fail. and Hopefully get what you want.
00:28:49
Speaker
Before we move on from failing, though, I want to talk about failing in front of our children and how we talk about failing to them, because I think that's an important one. I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but I have found that...
00:29:07
Speaker
you would think it'd be the opposite. You think children would just be born and they just like are cool failing at everything. But I find that sometimes children, especially as they start to get into an age where we're granted my oldest is only six, but as they start to get into an age where they're more aware, they go through this sort of phase where they want to do everything right.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yes. um And so we're going through that a little bit in our house right now. So we talk a lot about, we talk a lot about failure. And so I'm always sort of chatting about it with my kids. I'm talking about how like failing is, is good. One of my favorite things, I know like talk to I don't remember what episode I talked about it in, but I said, when my kids get home, instead of just pounding them with questions like, how was your day? What did you do? Who did you eat with?
00:29:50
Speaker
I will tell them about my day first, just to like get the conversation going. And so usually I'll say something that I did, and then I'll say something maybe that I failed at or that it didn't go right, just to help like normalize that idea that even as an adult,
00:30:06
Speaker
I'm still failing. And that's kind of like the point. Cause I find it, I found it very interesting about kids that they, they almost have this, like they go through this phase where they have this like apprehension to it that, you know, like, where does that come from? That we have this like fear of failure.
00:30:20
Speaker
i think kids, Fundamentally, and this is where, if I remembered a minute of child psychology, I could give you the research, but I think they're fairly binary. Like I think their comfort zones are sort of this or that.
00:30:32
Speaker
Right or wrong, yeah. it's Yeah, so right or wrong. And so... you know, they know that wrong is bad, so therefore they want to be right. And so they need help figuring out what that middle ground is. And so I do this with my own kids, but I learned to do this as a teacher.
00:30:49
Speaker
One of our favorite books was a book that just went through all the different mistakes that led to these wonderful inventions. And it's everything from like chocolate chip cookies, to post-it notes, to the slinky, to silly putty.
00:31:02
Speaker
And it was a really fun way of saying, you know, like the intent of a chocolate chip cookie was just to make a chocolate cookie. And then, you know, the morsels didn't melt. And like, how amazing is that? So it's sort of to create the space for, yeah that didn't go the way you expected, but- that's not always a bad thing. How exciting is this that happened from that? And it was it was something that I was very deliberate to talk about.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then to piggyback on that, the one thing that I would sort of mention to parents, when you swoop in and try to fix things and make it so your children never have to have that sort of sad feeling of failure, you're also taking away their ability to fail forward, overcome failure, roll with the punches and celebrate what they've learned as a result of it.
00:31:50
Speaker
So we've just spent, I don't know, 20 minutes talking about how much we gained from failing. And as parents, it goes the same way. Like if you swoop in and, you know, don't let your kids fail, they're never going to learn from anything.
Teaching Children About Failure
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. I heard something recently and they were saying the same thing, basically, like if you jump in to help them do something they can't do every time, all you're doing is showing them that you can do it. yeah don You what I mean? Like you're just patting your own back basically.
00:32:17
Speaker
So Megan, how do you guys talk about failure with your kids? I feel like it's trickled down somewhat where the way I was brought up, this was always like just said to me that we were never allowed to say the word can't in our house.
00:32:32
Speaker
Anytime we would say, I can't do this. I can't. My dad would be like, we don't say can't. And I still remember it today. And now I do it with my kids. And like, for example, I'll do quick Two quick ones. Nico plays a lot of sports. He's eight.
00:32:47
Speaker
He, his friends were all trying flag football and he's never played it. So I was like, let's, you know, I'll enroll you with your friends. They're all asking for you to join. Well, I can't play flag football, mom. I've never played it. And I'm like, you'll learn.
00:33:01
Speaker
Like, let's try it. You have to try. He's like, well, I'm better at soccer and basketball. And I'm like, that doesn't mean that you, you know, you can't try it and be good at it. And I feel like he's my one that's like afraid to try things unless he knows he's going to be like five star at it. Where I said to him, you don't always have to be the best one.
00:33:19
Speaker
It's about like being with your friends, getting outside, having fun. It's not about always you know? So I try to like tell him that with new things. He always gets nervous with new things.
00:33:32
Speaker
And then another example in our house recently, one of my other kids didn't it get in the level that she wanted to at dance. They had to audition to move up and feel like half the class got moved up, half didn't. Right.
00:33:46
Speaker
And she really thought she was going to get moved up and she didn't. And I told her, you know, you just got to work harder. You just maybe talk to the teacher. Is is there things like you need to do better? or And some of the kids quit that didn't get moved up to this higher level. And I don't i don't agree with that at all. We're not quitters in our house.
00:34:07
Speaker
So she was devastated. But again, it's not that you can't make it there. You just have to try harder. And it's going to be harder for you than someone else. But it doesn't mean that you...
00:34:21
Speaker
cannot do it. So I just feel like X-ing out that can't and just reinforcement and positivity. And just, even though I sound annoying when I'm doing it and I know I'm annoying, I feel like i I want to be annoying to know that they need that push and those words of encouragement and, you know, get out there and like as silly as it is even a soccer game, you know, like be aggressive and be a good teammate and, or if it's academics too, when you don't do well in a test, can you do extra credit? Can you go in for extra help?
00:34:51
Speaker
You have to put the time and the effort in, and i feel like we all said, it might not just come like that. And it's in the long run, the work you put in does pay off. I really do feel if it's academic sports, a career for whomever. I also think the subtext of not using can't is...
00:35:11
Speaker
Like in our family, we expect you to try hard and you're not going to be great at everything. So it's like that's the unspoken language of not saying can't is failure is just part of the deal.
00:35:23
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. But I also think it's interesting when we talk about failure that this has sort of come up that sometimes like you said that Nico was like, well, i I might not be good at it.
00:35:34
Speaker
And so we sort of have this like, well, if you're not number one, then all of the other ones are are failing. You know, I always think about that too. The idea that, you know, there's, there's so like success can be such a huge success to just be that he went to the game or whatever, and he played it and he had a good time. But sometimes like we kind of have this weird gauge of success that like, if you're not, you know, you your business didn't net gross a million dollars and you're not, you know, a household name that your business is a failure. So I always think that's interesting too. Like we have this weird gauge of what success is.
00:36:05
Speaker
very Okay. Before we move on to the next thing, Caitlin, do you have, your two cents about failure with your kids? I mean, I feel like I would just be repeating a lot of what everyone had said, but I'll never forget my middle child, Eileen, went to a religious preschool.
00:36:19
Speaker
So they had, it was called Jesus Time. And so there there was a lot of talk about God and everything. And she's a perfectionist, even since she was four. You know, if she didn't draw the, if she didn't color in the lines, she got really upset.
00:36:32
Speaker
And I remember at her first conference, her teacher said, Well, our motto in class is God made erasers, because if you do something you don't like, then you can erase it and start over and try again. And so much to my kids dismay, I bring this up a lot.
00:36:47
Speaker
Like, why do you think we have erasers? Now, when my oldest didn't win the election for student council for treasurer, she said, well, you can't erase that. And I'm like, well, that just means there's a different opportunity out there for you. But kudos to you. Let's celebrate that you even went for that position because that was scary.
00:37:06
Speaker
And now you can be motivated and you know what it takes to go try for a different position later on in life. But I think just remembering that it's okay to make mistakes. I talk a lot about my personal everything, failed failed jobs, failed friendships, failed, I don't know, anything under the sun, just to show them that it happens to everybody.
Interview with Erica on Embracing Failure
00:37:30
Speaker
Cause Callie, you said, you know, they,
00:37:32
Speaker
Children don't realize adults can make mistakes too. And sometimes you have to show them, you know, we're all human. It's part of life. Before we jump into pits and peaks, I'm going to share a chat that I had with Erica. She's the founder of the blog Coming Up Roses, and she's the host of the Thrive Podcast, where she empowers people to try to transition from surviving to thriving. She's also the author of a book called Caffeinate Your Soul, which is 52 Monday Mantras. So she offers like encouragement to help people navigate life's challenges. And I chatted with her a little bit about some of her failures and how she chats about it with her kids.
00:38:10
Speaker
So in today's episode, we talked about failing forward, how failure is really beneficial. So I wanted to ask you sort of being a pro about just positive thinking. And, you know, I love the way that you frame stuff.
00:38:22
Speaker
I want to talk to you about ah failure that you had that turned out to be beneficial or that you're grateful that you had. Kelly, I thought you were going to say you're professional at failing.
00:38:34
Speaker
so Really going to be The intro that I go out with. I mean, is that the worst? No, honestly, not really. And in thinking about this, I think it's kind of funny because something comes to mind and you're going to make fun of me for it because you're like pretty good in the kitchen.
00:38:50
Speaker
Me, however, not my not my strongest suit. And this is probably one of the failures I'll take to my grave was in college-ish, I thought I was dating my now husband.
00:39:03
Speaker
He has this long held family chicken noodle soup recipe that like has been passed down through the generations. He makes it fabulously. I thought I'm gonna be the best girlfriend over here and ah he's gonna come home to this chicken noodle soup. Like I'm gonna figure it out on my own. I'm gonna do it. Mind you, had never made had never made this before, was not at all well-versed in a kitchen.
00:39:27
Speaker
So I thought I was killing him. I started by taking the whole chicken and just in the pot and like giblets and all. Like didn't remove that.
00:39:38
Speaker
So we know we're off to a really good start. Carrots. I didn't shave the carrots. I like chopped them up, thought I was killing it Didn't realize you had to like scrub and shave them and you know, like not have these dirty brown speckled carrots in the pot. I put the noodles in the pot as I was making it all.
00:40:00
Speaker
So like I thought he's going to come home and be so impressed. He's going to propose like this is it. I've just sealed the deal. I'm killing it. He came home and he was like, why is there dirty chicken mush in the pot?
00:40:13
Speaker
Like not only have you completely not done chicken noodle soup, But, like, we now have no ingredients for actual soup. And, like, this isn't even edible. This isn't edible. like No.
00:40:25
Speaker
Grandma is so mad. this It was disgraceful. Like, there was no salvaging it. There was no, like, cute twist. So I will say – That was an abominable failure. Like there's no way to spin that, but I will never again forget how to make chicken noodle soup.
00:40:42
Speaker
I will never forget again that you do not put the noodles in when you are first making your soup. Like there are certain little things there that I can laugh about now. And another success that came from that is learning that like my husband is the one that is going to be well-versed in the kitchen. Like that is his space and I can be okay with that.
00:41:00
Speaker
I have two. Okay. I have two beautiful things to pull away from that. One, I never thought about how cooking is really just failing. I mean, like the only way you really can learn how to cook is like, nobody cooks good at first.
00:41:12
Speaker
It's like, you got to F it up. And that's how you, you learn to do all of cooking, which I love. And then the second thing that I actually really love to pull away from that is how sometimes a failure, I think that, you know, a lot of what we already talked about, but the girls and I already talked about was how failing can bring you to success and it teaches you these beautiful lessons.
00:41:31
Speaker
Sometimes the lesson is just, maybe you're not good at that, which, you know, is totally fine. And when you think about framing it for your children, was listening to this really beautiful interview and I can't remember the woman I'm going to send her to you afterwards.
00:41:43
Speaker
But she was talking about how as parents, sometimes we want to tell our kids, like, you're good at everything. You can do anything. And sometimes we have to teach them like, you know, maybe that's just something you're not great at. And like, that's okay. Like it's okay not to be great at something. and Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I have so much I could say off of that because i think you're right. Like I, it makes me think of that Thomas Edison quote where he failed.
00:42:06
Speaker
What was it? 10,000 times in creating a light bulb. And he was asked, you know, what did you learn from this? And he's like, I had learned 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb. Like, Nothing profound there. I just figured out how not to do it. But on along the way, I figured out how to do it correctly.
00:42:20
Speaker
um And in thinking about how we frame that to our kids, I think you're exactly right. i I actually stopped telling my daughter, like, you could do anything. Because I was like, that's actually that's actually not true. Like, as depressing as that is, that's the worst speech to a class of kindergartners. But, like, it's realistically, I think, potentially doing more harm than good to just be like, yeah, anything that you want to do you could do. Because...
00:42:43
Speaker
We're human beings, we were created with limits. like We can shatter ceilings and we can push our limits for sure and we can absolutely do hard things, but can we do every single thing that we possibly could dream of?
00:42:57
Speaker
i I don't think that I can. Like if I wanted to go space, like there's just certain things in life where there are qualifications that you have to hit to get there. And if yeah for whatever reason you are unable to do that, I think the key is turning not turning it into a reflection of your self-worth or internalizing it as there's something wrong with me. I think it's best used if you can turn it into, okay, what have I learned from this?
00:43:22
Speaker
What can I take with me moving forward? And how can I use this to kind of prune my path going forward? That's kind of where failing forward comes from for me. Like, okay, if we're just on this journey forward in a positive fashion, what can I take with me for the road? And what am I leaving in the past? Like, okay, that's like...
00:43:39
Speaker
Like I didn't take it as a whole reflection of my ability to cook in general. I wasn't like, all right, this just means that I am never fit to touch a pot again forever and ever. Amen. Like I'm done. But I certainly took that as, okay, maybe I'm not like Martha Stewart.
00:43:53
Speaker
Maybe I'm not destined to like write a cookbook, but can I learn from this and figure out how to make soup correctly in the future? Sure. Like, absolutely. I can totally do that. If we are saying that we're not going to say to our children, you can do like, you can do everything. You can do anything.
00:44:08
Speaker
What do you think is a better mantra to you give our children? can do hard things. Yeah. because i love that one. Because hard is different for everyone too. Like what's hard for you is going to be different than what's hard for me. going be different than what's hard for our children.
00:44:20
Speaker
So I think it's a better mentality to teach them that when you come across something that feels difficult or is challenging in some way, that does not necessarily mean that it is impossible.
00:44:31
Speaker
It does not mean that you can't figure it out. It doesn't mean that you can get through it with some elbow grease, with some help, with some other resources. Like there's ways to figure things out. So I think it's much better.
00:44:42
Speaker
Instead of giving them this generic, overwhelming, like absolutely anything, you dream it, you can do it, which I think can feel overwhelming instead of empowering. Just encouraging them to really understand, like you can do hard things there. Just because it's hard does not mean that you are unequipped. It doesn't mean that you are unable. It just means that it is the next challenge to look at and figure out and assess and fail your way through before you succeed.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yes. And what sort of is my final question that I'll, I'll ask you, what are some ways that you what are some ways that you i don't know if modeling is the right word, but what are some ways that you fail like that you actively fail in front of your children, so that they can see you fail or some ways that you speak about failing to them, you can take either vein of that question and that you want to.
00:45:31
Speaker
I think being willing to try new things that you are not sure ahead of time that you can do is a very important way to do that for your kids. Because I think sometimes we're much more willing to do something if we already feel like we have a proclivity to do it well, or that we'll be good at it. We're like, all right, I could do that.
00:45:48
Speaker
I think I can already. where I think a lot less likely to try something if we're like, whoa, this is completely new territory and I have no idea if I'll be good at this or not. Like, let's find out together. And I think being willing to find out together in front of your children where you very well may fail at it and they very well may see you fail at it, that's a vulnerable place to be because we also don't like failing in front of our kids. We like to be, you know, the model who can do, but them seeing how you try is the important part one. And then them seeing...
00:46:18
Speaker
How you struggle, how you potentially fail, and then what you do next is the exact model, I think, in terms of showing them, hey, you can try because the only way you're going to fail is if you try in the first place.
00:46:32
Speaker
Then they'll see how you grow through that also. They'll see how you, okay, Mommy didn't do that well. What's she going to do now? Like, is she going to try again? Is she going to adjust her process? Is she going to take a step back, assess, like have some strategy for next time? Is she going to phone a friend? Like what's the process now for when we come up to something that we're not good at, that we've never done before, that is really hard, that we did blatantly fail at, and now we want to do it again? They kind of get that entire play-by-play by watching us do it.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yes. I love um letting them see – sort of that we're not the the idea of trying something new but then seeing that like we're not good at everything too because I feel like kids sometimes like internalize this idea that like they have to be good at everything yeah right off the bat like my favorite discussion that I have with my can you believe that our children are six now like painful I know Erica and I had our children like two weeks apart our first borns too oh my gosh it's insane It's like I love to have discussions with Miles and I instead of being like, how was your day today? I'll like let him know how my day was and I'll like stick a little failure in there like, oh I tried to get something done and I couldn't get it done. And so I love that idea of just letting them watch us go through the process, too.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah. It helps them be easier on themselves then also, because if they grow up thinking that you have it all together all the time, that is what they are internalizing that grownups do. They're internalizing that like, at some point you figure it all out and you have it all together and you know how to do all the things.
00:47:57
Speaker
And like, we all, I feel like a lot of us probably had that jarring realization at some point that like, Oh God, adulting, like yeah we all do this and somehow what?
00:48:07
Speaker
like yeah, we all thought like when we turned 30 that, Like, we would just know everything. and then we'd turn 30 and we're like, wait. Wait. That was the biggest lie that anybody ever gave me. You're like, most of the important things you don't actually learn in school.
00:48:20
Speaker
So like, that's unfair. um But like, that's, that's the thing. Like we don't want our kids to feel duped along the way. Like I would much rather them see like, Hey, life is actually hard and it's going to be hard for forever.
00:48:34
Speaker
There's always going to be next hard thing. That doesn't mean that it's not enjoyable. That doesn't mean that it's not figureoutable. You can totally, cant You can approach it all with a certain attitude and developing that attitude in them, I think, is the most important thing that they can take with them for when they inevitably fail.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yes. All right, Erica, thank you so much
00:48:57
Speaker
All right, time for pits
Weekly Highs and Lows
00:48:58
Speaker
and peaks. Who wants to go first? I don't remember mine. I'll go. Mine's super simple. My peak is, I'm just, I'm having a nice time walking these dogs. It's nice out. It gets me out and moving.
00:49:08
Speaker
Even though the little one can't always keep up, it's like to become a nice part of my day. When do you do your walk after lunch? No, I usually will walk the kids to the end of the street to get on the bus and then we'll just go from there.
00:49:20
Speaker
Nice. So I can't back out. Yeah, you're already there. I like that. Okay. I know mine. Mine's a peak. i got i I got rid of another annual doctor's appointment that I didn't want to go do. I went and had my mammogram yesterday and got a, everything is A-okay. So now I can just forget about it for another year.
00:49:43
Speaker
Guys, did I say on here how I was getting really aggro with all my doctors about tracking down I scheduled all my doctor's appointments, but you remember how it was, I'm so frustrated with perimenopause and how my weight gain, and I just was like, I'm going into my OBG, like I'm going in ready to battle.
00:49:59
Speaker
It was sort of, i wouldn't say that she met my fervor. She was like, fine, I'll put you on the birth control pill. Like that's a little bit of estrogen. We'll see how you do Anyway, she, i ordered a bunch of but blood work. All my blood work was normal. And I was like, I refuse to listen. So I got some like mail in blood tests. Like now if you Google, and it was specifically for metabolism,
00:50:19
Speaker
And one of the markers that was high for me was testosterone, which can be linked to like PC, what is it? PCOS. PCOS.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah. Like, every you know, that was the only thing that seems like it would fit my symptoms and my age. So now, you know, maybe- That is FOS. But I've never been so excited to have a marker because I was like, I did this. I got all my tests and this shows something. So that's, you made me think of that, Caitlin, as we like aggressively schedule medical procedures. Yes. yeah And have to like advocate our own, which is always fun. Yeah, that's fun.
00:50:56
Speaker
Megan, do you have a pit or a peak? So I have a pit that I'm hoping will turn into a peak. I've been needing to get a new cell phone. It's like over two years old and it's just ready to – Dinosaur. Because I use – you know, with what we do for work and stuff and the videos and the photos and I've been putting it off and finally i went the other day and the girl ordered it and she was like,
00:51:21
Speaker
You know, anything in your drafts, you're going to have to save and you got to like go through and delete everything. So then when it comes in, you'll be ready to go. But you know how it is getting a new phone. It's a whole process. And then you got to learn and everything moves and you got to reset the password in the long run.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's going to be a peak because like I'll have a better quality phone with photos and videos, but it's just the whole process. I don't know. Maybe it's, I'm just like whiny and annoying, but I just.
00:51:48
Speaker
No, you always forget the one thing that you don't. Yes. Like you go to log in somewhere or like there's some draft that you forgot. There's always something you forget to do. Yeah. It is annoying. Yeah.
00:51:58
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I have a I have a pit, too, which is unfortunate to end on pits. But I so we usually in our house on Friday, Michael like does a ton of laundry and then we finish it up on Saturday. And then on Sunday, we put all the laundry away. That's like what currently has been working in our life since Opal was born.
00:52:16
Speaker
And on Sunday, we did not put the laundry away. And so now we just have this like pile. And then I was going to do it yesterday and just ah like it the piles in the bedroom. And which is one of those things that I would say, don't ever put it in the bedroom because it's out of sight, out of mind. But it's been working because it's been like a repeating thing we do every Sunday.
00:52:36
Speaker
And so I walked upstairs and i was like, and so now I have this pile of laundry. And I don't know about you guys, but I feel like for me when I'm behind on laundry, it because it feels like that it's this like indication light of like where my light life currently is. And so like, or like it's a gauge, like a fuel gauge, like I'm going towards empty.
00:52:55
Speaker
So anyways, I just have this big pile of laundry that maybe I'll put away later. don't know. How many days are you on with that pile? Sunday. What's today? Tuesday. It's been sitting there like 48 hours. That's nothing.
00:53:05
Speaker
say our our like what is it our average yes yeah yeah do you want us to text you callie how can we hold you accountable just pictures i well okay so today's tuesday we have our nanny on tuesdays she stays till five so usually i get like an hour and a half of some time after the big kids get home to like get something done so that's my i got it on my i've got it written down it's like today's so i think it'll happen text me tomorrow morning if it didn't happen i'll let you know great All right.
00:53:38
Speaker
Thus concludes the end of this episode. As always, if you have a moment, please leave us a review. It helps us out a lot to hear from you guys. Or, you know, don't know, follow us on Instagram and the other platforms that we might have.
00:53:52
Speaker
Like and follow. Like and follow. Bye. Bye. I've tried, written down the words to say, it is time, I've been waiting five days to explain how I feel.