Mindfulness in success and failure

Eric Ries, author of The Lean startup says,

“Unfortunately, learning, is the oldest excuse in the book for a failure of execution.”

I agree. Success is important. In fact, being able to succeed means that we are learning well from our failures. And that is the right attitude. The important question then is that – do we have the right attitude? Isn’t it true that we all cringe at failures and hinge on to successes, often? What makes us do that?

On the face of it, it might seem that the reasons are real, rather justified. More often than not it is the possibilities of exhausting all the money, losing social support or not being able to attract investors before success hits. But at the core of it, the truth is that our mind is simply biased against these outcomes, meaning- the truth is actually that we don’t like the feeling of not having money or losing support or not having investors. If these outcomes did not affect our morale, wouldn’t we continue to fight trying to find a way out? Instead of that, we lose heart and give up. What can we do then?

It is not the success or failure but the attitude towards the success or failure that really matters. Success and failure are just points on a journey. Something like x1, x2, x3…., xn. We label those points as good or bad and decide how we are going to feel about them way ahead in the journey. Isn’t this irrational? The truth is that each point provides an opportunity for insights and only those insights can lead us to the destination. The only choice we really have, if we truly want to learn is to be objective about our experiences and see them in true light. Without any labels of good or bad. More on the lines of – “This experience taught me so and so, and now with this newly earned insight I can move closer to my goal by doing so and so…”. That’s it.

Another thing, nothing is final.

For example, a founder who is a psychologist may start a startup with an idea of selling wellbeing courses to students and slowly start winning customers (parents). Over time she might realize that the competition is very tough, and she is not going to make enough to break even. Reaching a point of failure as she tries to make sense of what to do next, a vlog on How to build resilience starts selling online by itself through the website. The users are working adults, and the vlog sales grow exponentially in no time. With the new sales coming at the right time, the founder pivots and finds unmatched success. Now the old success of selling to kids becomes redundant and this new success paves way to the future. If the founder was not agile or observant enough, she would lose out on a big opportunity.

And this is the essence of mindfulness. Mindfulness simply means –

1. Seeing reality as it is without any reaction, bias, or labels. No good or bad.
2. Learning to be in the present.
3. Adapting to the philosophy of This will also change

The word “mindfulness” originates from the practice of Vipassana meditation which is the main teachings of the Buddha that have the promise to liberate us from all suffering. Vipassana meaning “seeing reality as it is”, is the practice of developing objectivity in the mind and observing our thoughts and feelings without reaction. Mindfulness refers to the quality of being fully in the present moment in a high state of awareness.