Failure — the big struggle.
Is it something permanent, or something to learn from?

A few years back, one of my athletes’ parents recommended a book to me: Mindset by Carol Dweck. It took me far too long to pick it up. Maybe because I never felt I needed it. I’ve always been the “I’ll find a way” kind of guy. Maybe it’s my Latin blood, maybe it’s growing up hyperactive — always moving, always trying.

The book breaks things down simply: Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset.

Fixed mindset sounds like this:
If I’m good at it, I can do it.
If I can’t do it, it’s not for me.
(Ego preservation.)

Growth mindset sounds like this:
If I can do it, I should find something harder.
If I can’t do it, I need better tools, support, or time.

Failure, in that sense, isn’t bad.
Failure is useful — as long as we stop, reflect, and learn from it.
Without reflection, failure just repeats itself. With it, failure becomes direction.

I’ve been in environments where success was external: get the medal. Without it, it wasn’t good enough. I’ve also seen what follows — people quitting, burning out, or quietly shrinking their ambition just to survive.

Lately, I’m seeing a shift. More places where learning matters. Where improvement matters. Where people understand that a mistake — or the absence of a reward — doesn’t define their value.

That’s where my method comes from. Helping people see there’s more than one way through life, more than one way to succeed — especially when you’re the one defining what success actually means. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is part of a bigger whole.

An athlete once told me he couldn’t complete the full program. Head down. Guilty. Then he added he’d been sick and needed rest.

So what comes first?

Where do health, recovery, responsibility, and ambition sit in your hierarchy?

If failure is feedback, then reflection is what gives it meaning.

And maybe the real question isn’t whether we fail —
but whether we dare to fail well, or stay safe enough to never grow at all.