One topic I find that is rarely written about is what do you do when you lose in life.
It has happened a lot to me personally and if you have watched anything from Sylvester Stallone; recovering from loss if a core part of his themes.
In fact, I am a massive Sly fan from many viewpoints. Firstly he can handle making fun of himself when you watch great films such as ‘Stop or my mom will shoot!’, right through to be a man of charity to that of being someone who deals with real issues in life.
In ‘Stop or my Mom Will Shoot’, it’s a brilliant one of our hero played by Stallone getting an adult education from his overbearing, yet super awesome mum. You have situations in that film where Sly gets owned, but his mum’s advice always come to the comedic rescue.
In many times in life, I have lost and I am sure you have done too. This has been anything from being taken advantage of in business relationships, romantic relationships and even just having people try and pull you down totally acting from a “Tall Poppy Syndrome” childish type of motive. It can also be more ‘positive losses’ as I call them in terms of missing out on picking up a new account and the let down you get after going after a big opportunity.
I call that a ‘positive loss’ in that nothing bad happened to you, in fact it’s a compliment that people are inviting you to play big. It’s just that you missed out. It happens which I think is awesome. In that case, I would argue that you are failing forward. This is in that in the short term you are losing, BUT you are actually winning on a macro level.
My advice and lessons? Losing sucks. I know, believe me. But when things go against you, work on getting the upper hand as much as you can and getting what you can out of situations. That can be as simple as cutting losses so you can move on, or even coming up with a new idea that can actually swing victory your way. Playing victim isn’t the answer.
You can tell I am talking from personal experience on this one! Thanks for the read, thank you Sly Stallone and stay awesome friends!
P.S. Check out the referenced film too, if you want to learn how to deal with loss in style and humour – it will be your ultimate guide!
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