Kay:

Hey, there Questers happy Thursday! It’s May 20th and this is episode 359. We have a beautiful quote for you today. When we first read it, I just about melted out of my seat, trying to read it to Shila. But it’s from Truman Capote who you likely know being the author of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the true-crime novel “In Cold Blood.” So, there is lots of amazing stuff that comes from this writer, and this quote is definitely one of those things.

Shi:

It’s nine little words, and they are, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

Kay:

Whew. That is so good.

Shi:

The imagery, the lesson, the delivery, such a good quote.

Kay:

Alright. So, before we talk about success and failure, first, let’s talk about condiments. So, the real-real you guys. I know many of you are from the East coast and some of you are not from here in the United States, but here in the Western part of the United States, we have a very important condiment called ranch dressing.

Shi:

The old ranch.

Kay:

And you know what ranch dressing is just so good and there are not many things that don’t go with ranch. But I tell you if I am going to eat potatoes, I want to have ranch on the side of those potatoes. Sometimes I won’t eat the fried potatoes without the ranch, because the condiment gives the potatoes its flavor.

Shi:

When it’s food. It’s so easy to say, I want the condiment, but when the condiment that gives success its flavor is failure. Like-

Kay & Shi:

Eeeeeeeeee!

Shi:

I don’t know if I’m ready to make that agreement, but I guess what we’re saying here is failure is the ranch to your success pizza. If you want to take that pizza to the next level, you’re going to need to embrace the condiment of failure ranch, because it’s the only way that we’re going to get that true experience, and maybe you’re in a different place where ranch isn’t the thing. But what is that condiment for you, and can you get a little silly with us and imagine that your favorite food without that condiment just wouldn’t be the same?

Kay:

Well, be it your failure ranch or your success pizza what I love about this quote is that when we have a condiment like ranch dressing, now I don’t seek potatoes without asking for a side of ranch.

Shi:

You know.

Kay:

I don’t seek pizza without asking for a side of ranch. Exactly. I know that ranch is a part of the deal when it comes to pizza. If ranches to pizza as failure is to success, then you’ve got to know that when you’re striving towards success, failure’s a part of the deal.

Shi:

That’s so hard to accept though when it’s not ranch and pizza. When failure is part of the deal, I think, conceptually, it’s so easy to embrace this. Okay. Yes, I understand and from my intellectual place of knowing, I say, bring it on failure. But when failure comes and slaps you in the face, it is so hard to not have an emotional crisis about it, about your own worthiness, about your own performance, about your own failings or deservedness, or about the role you play or didn’t play and so many things in-between. We end up having some oftentimes identity crises. We have anxiety attacks, we get emotionally drained, we suffer mental health-wise when failure comes along, even though intellectually, we were just agreeing that yes, indeed failure is part of success.

Kay:

On the other side of that, when success comes without a difficult path or a difficult journey or gets handed to you without necessarily being earned, you might experience something like imposter syndrome. You might win the lottery and spend all your money in two years and not have anything to show for it. You could come across something that is amazing and you’re not ready for the opportunity and you end up being successful at first, but then fumbling it down the line because you didn’t learn some of those hard lessons on the front end. So, you might get the pizza without the ranch and it’s just not quite right. You’re still eating the pizza, but the restaurant didn’t have the ranch and it’s like, well, it’s good, but I know that it would be better if it had the ranch. Guess what? Success is the same when it comes to failure. You can have success without failure but it’s so much sweeter when you have failure with it.

Shi:

I heard TD Jakes talking about you’ll never know thanking God for your health until you’re faced with illness. You just don’t know that level to thank God for your liver or your kidneys or your intestines until one of those that are truly facing a health crisis. Then you have this incredible perspective and deep gratitude because of that experience or that pain. So, just an interesting take on the quote that was delivered to you today here from Truman Capote.

Kay:

So beautiful. He says, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

Shi:

Alright, it’s time for Thoughtful Thursday today gang. Condiments with Kapote Quest. Whenever and wherever you encounter a form of “failure” today, whether it’s saying something you didn’t wish you hadn’t, or at the meeting or sleeping in passing your alarm, maybe slipping up on securing that dinner reservation you said you would, or anything else like that. Give yourself grace by allowing your failures from today to serve as fuel to finding even deeper and more delicious flavor in your future successes. Are you ready? Say it with us now.

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!