Kay:

Hey there Questers and welcome back! It’s Tuesday, October 27th, and this is Episode 212. We’re stoked to be here with you today! We’ve got a great quote from Denzel Washington and he says, “When you fall, fall forward.”

Shi:

So five wise words from one wise dude, but I know that I have certainly heard him talk about this concept and these words quite a bit. This is from a graduation speech that Denzel gave years ago. It has made its way around the internet and certainly all over YouTube and certainly spliced into all the motivational YouTube videos that I like to watch. And, in fact, I want to play for you just a little piece of this quote, and you’ll see why we didn’t quite choose the whole thing. So, here we go. We’re going to play you a few seconds of Denzel talking here:

Denzel Washington (Audio):

First, you will fail at some point in your life. Accept it, you will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There’s no doubt about it.

Shi:

Love this quote! Obviously, it’s not super motivational. So when it comes to using that as the featured quote, we didn’t want to have that be the thing on the meme. But what I think is so great about this, and what I love every time it comes up in one of those motivational YouTube videos is that it’s really pointing out the fact that all of us are going to have those painful moments. If you’re alive, if you’re breathing, you’re going to fail at things and failure looks different for each and every one of us. It’s not some mytherial thing. It’s real and it hurts and it’s hard. And, as Denzel says, “Accept it, you will lose. You will embarrass yourself and you will suck at something. There’s no doubt, zero doubt about it.” And so, when you fall, fall forward. And so, he brings that super non motivational quote in to then motivate us with this concept of falling forward.

Kay:

Well, I feel like Denzel is almost giving us permission-

Shi:

Mm-hmm.

Kay:

By saying that it’s everybody. So, if you feel like you suck or you’re stuck right now, that’s not something to be discouraged over because everybody sucks at something at some point. And the ending of this quote with the, “when you fall, you fall forward” is just so good too. What I love so much about this is that falling is almost always going to be painful. So, if you have to go through the pain anyway, could you maybe find a gain through that pain by learning something through that, and then gaining ground along the way? So, instead of falling and losing, maybe gain ground instead by using those losses as lessons!

Shi:

Right. It’s not a question of IF you fall – fall forward. It’s WHEN you fall. Just like he tells us, you will at some point, because everyone will. It sucks. But falling forward allows us to keep making progress and keep that momentum moving forward. You know it’s that famous Thomas Edison had a thousand ways that didn’t work. And then it was number 1,001. Now, if he would have stopped at number 999, he wouldn’t have invented it. He wouldn’t have had the success. It would have just been the failure period instead of falling forward and continuing that. If you fail and give up then it is a loss, and everyone remembers the failures, or they don’t remember you at all. But if you keep falling, you’ll eventually WIN and then you can hang your hat on that!

Kay:

You know, when we were young, one of the things that I always loved about our dad was that he really was passionate about the game of football. And now, while you couldn’t ask him questions about the game while he was watching a game, he was more than happy to explain the rules of the game as we were growing up in and around the sport (as long as it wasn’t LIVE). And I’ll never forget one time we were watching a game together and this gentleman gets totally tackled on the 99th yard line. Like completely buried by other men. And when he gets uncovered from this pile of men it turns out that this guy on like the 98th yard line, actually, had stretched his body and legs and arm out so far, that it was just far enough to get the football over the yard line and into the touchdown space. And I asked my dad, “Well, does that really count?” And he said, “Well, the ball was over the line and look how the guy stretched to get it there.” And I’ll never forget that even through that pile of guys, the gentleman still scored the points because he was willing to stretch through the fall and work toward the touchdown even though he knew that he was going down.

Shi:

Well, and it’s so practical to use that as an example. And I think that it really helps highlight this idea of – when you’re falling – if you’re falling forward – you’re still gaining ground.

Kay:

Mm-hmm.

Shi:

And that you’re one step, (albeit a sloppy step that might’ve landed you on your face and with a skinned knee!), but one step forward and closer towards the thing that you’re working towards. And sometimes a failure is a detour. Sometimes it doesn’t always gain you ground in the direct path of what it is that you’re seeking, but you are always gaining ground spiritually – or sometimes it’s physically, or emotionally, or mentally. And for those of us who like to take creative license and really try to find that silver lining, no matter what, you can always find those wins, even in the failures. And so, Denzel is really reminding us here that we can use those failures towards our advantage, and to keep getting up and to keep using them for progress. Because it’s only when you quit that you really lose and fail.

Kay:

So like he says, “When you fall, fall forward.”

Shi:

And that brings us to your quest today, which is a failure quest!

Kay:

Shocking.

Shi:

Failure to quest! No, no – you are going to succeed at this quest because we want you to ask yourself: When’s the last time you failed? Identify one way you could take that failure to further your learning growth or character building moving forward. Maybe take a little creative license like we do, but figure out how to turn that failure into forward motion. Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!