Failing With Soul

Have you ever given something your best shot and felt you didn't measure up? Perhaps you prepared a meal for guests that just didn't make it. Sure it was OK, but it wasn't excellent. Maybe you participated in a sporting event and didn't place as highly as you would have liked. Perhaps you gave a presentation that seemed pretty good, but when compared to those of others seemed pretty ordinary.

I had such an experience recently. I was asked to facilitate a meeting, something I have done hundreds of times. This meeting was out of town, with a group I had never met. I did my homework, talked with representatives of the group, and prepared an outline for the day.

At the meeting site, I met with staff and prepared the room. I was excited as I introduced myself. Then things began to go awry. My facilitation questions were met with resistance and finally open hostility. Someone said, “Why don't you just let us discuss without interrupting.” This had never happened before. I felt like a vaudeville performer who had been yanked from the stage with a hook, because the audience booed his performance.

After the meeting, there were some, “Thank you for being with us,” comments. But that was it. I left and proceeded to the Amtrak station for my journey home.

While on the train, I thought long and hard about what had happened. One voice in me was defensive and angry. It shouted, “They weren't clear in what they wanted!” “They were biased against an outside facilitator.” “They were arrogant and elitist.”

Another voice was self accusatory. “You didn't prepare well enough.” “You don't have the skills to facilitate people as talented and experienced as these.” “You should not have taken on this task.”

Through it all, another voice spoke quietly in the background. “Whatever the reasons for this discouraging experience, you can learn from it.” “Perhaps you engaged a task that exceeded your present abilities.” “Maybe this experience is preparing you for opportunities that you have not yet envisioned.” “Is it possible that your explicit vulnerability and lack of defensiveness were vehicles for greater understanding on the part of the group?”

Then the thought came, “How is this experience related to 'Living With Soul?'” “What might it mean to 'Fail with Soul?'”

I remembered the Ray Charles quote, “Soul is like electricity – we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light up a room.” Up to now, I had tacitly assumed that this soul energy was positive and energizing. I now saw that living with Soul may lead to vulnerability and sadness. Ray Charles knew this truth. He put it this way, “There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, ''If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.” (As you may remember, Ray Charles gradually went blind between the ages of five and seven from untreated glaucoma.)

If living with Soul doesn't guarantee a happy or successful life, what good is it? I'm beginning to believe that living with Soul helps me to become more authentic. Authentic people seem to accept themselves with all their strengths and weaknesses. They don't have to pretend as much. They don't expend as much energy convincing themselves that they are more than they really are. They seem less defensive when confronted with their deficits and less inflated when they excel.

They are inspiring to be around. When they lead, they are worth following. When they follow, they embolden those whom they identify as leaders. They make good advisors because they “tell it like it is.”

People who fail with Soul, truly authentic people, are scary to be around. They needn't tear others down or build them up to gain an advantage. They don't play the “get ahead” games that our society encourages. They implicitly challenge these narcissistic patterns by their very presence. Authentic people strip off our masks and pretenses. They encourage those around them to grow into their own personal potentials.

Living with Soul means that we will fail with Soul even as we succeed with Soul. In fact, living with Soul challenges the very meaning of success and failure. It's not about winning and losing. It's about being all that we are and helping everyone else be all that they are. This “all” includes all my positive traits as well as all of my negative ones. This kind of living makes life real and valuable.

Perhaps my humbling experience was a gift to me and to the participants of this meeting. Maybe it provided each of us an opportunity to step out of our personal self-defined little boxes - an opportunity to view ourselves, the organizations with which we work, and our social milieu with a new clarity and perspective.

I would be interested in your stories about failing to meet your own expectations.