Forgive me for paraphrasing, but the original video clip has escaped my Google searches. Still, I remember what was said vividly enough to rely on its wisdom daily.
It was a relaxing Sunday evening three weeks ago. Earlier in the day, I’d missed the end of the PGA Championship and was hoping to catch the highlights while I ate dinner. So, I dialed up The Golf Channel. Seconds after tuning in, Xander Schauffele, 2024’s winner, was asked in the immediate aftermath of his first major tournament victory if his repeated failures had ever got to him. For a flash, the question seemed to get under his skin. His brow furrowed, lips pursed. He had every right to be irritated. At the 2020 Olympics, he won gold in golf’s first appearance. Before this year’s PGA Championship victory, he’d finished within the top ten twelve times at major championships. He has a second place finish at The Masters and The US Open. The guy’s obviously a helluva golfer… but he’d never won a major.
Equally as fast as the frustration appeared, it dissolved from his face as a serene smile appeared, and he replied, “You know, I never saw myself as a failure. I always saw myself as a guy that was trying his best and just needed more experience.”
I paused the broadcast, thinking to myself, “Whoa.”
Inside my life, I have categorically labeled myself a failure many times. The resulting shame of those failures has been all encompassing. And entirely delusional.
After hearing Schauffele’s career accounting, I wondered if his approach might be a far more graceful and sustainable approach to daily life. Because, as I look back at my “failures”, I too was just a guy who needed more experience. Those shortcomings were never referendums on who I was or what I was capable of. Though, for too long, I believed failure was defining. But it never was; as long as I was trying my best, that defined who I was.
Next time we screw up—in the manner I likely will today while working on furniture—let’s live in the more accurate, less punishing, and amenable reality of being people who need more experience. Then, let’s get on with owning the next experience.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
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