Stop Trying to Escape your Misery. It holds the Wisdom for Growth.

My life has seen business successes, personal wins and horrendous losses with the death of my son and nephew as infants. The latter brought pain and growth. The wisdom I have gained from the greatest tragedies is something I am lucky to have received.

Winners take all — or do they? Leinster and Liverpool fell to the sword yesterday. The pain is horrendous, but your growth is found inside the discomfort of the loss. In there, you will unwrap the sage’s wisdom.

The psychological challenges attached to being and sustaining your status as number 1 are often far greater than the challenges connected to competing to be number 1.

Society has culturally embedded the belief that you should push for your goal. However, we don’t have a culture of sustained success. We have the opposite; we want those who succeed to fail. We see it repeatedly — top strikers who stop scoring, tennis players who leave the tour to manage their mental health, golfers who fall foul of the media.

Liverpool and Leinster have a clear objective for the next season. Both Real Madrid and La Rochelle have real challenges. Madrid is facing a clear out of top talent. The fans will bask in the glory, but the next manager and his players may cower in the shadow of this win.

We must start to deconstruct failure. We must begin to see the overwhelming opportunities for growth within loss and build our team’s goals around these.

The consequences of failure should be growth, with no exceptions. You can use these fact-based real-life lessons to build your teams. Open up to the vulnerability of loss and collectively find the space to heal and rebuild.

I have learned far more from my failures in life than from my successes. Other people would champion my accomplishments. To me, It was always an empty chalice — a promise of so much, but a promise only created in my mind. The meaning and growth that I found as the runner-up never ceased to amaze me.

Life is a journey. When you fixate on the destination that should define your life, you will likely be disappointed. There is no real win, just milestones. Pick up the lessons and move to the next.

My mission is continued growth. A building of my self-awareness and knowing that will contain highs and lows. I am trying to be unattached to either and enjoying both.

In the ancient Taoist teachings, this is called Wu-Wei. A close translation is flow-state. Being the participant and putting in the work but not being defined by the outcome.

Leadership is about psychologically safe teams exploiting the boundaries of their mind, emotions and capabilities. I bring genuine accountability and candour to all my interactions. Often this can be uncomfortable but remember where we find growth. I am only interested in meaningful and measurable results. Imagine the peace of mind of absolute focus without the fear of failure. It is attainable. Let’s rethink failure and reward those willing to grow from it.

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