What is the Message We Send About Failure?

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you strong and thriving and doing absolutely amazing failure. Think about how that word makes you feel. When we talk about words having power. Think about the power behind that word, fear of failure. It stops us in our tracks. It can hold us back can put severe limitations on us in knowing the power that failure can have a question that we should be asking ourselves is what message do we send our students about failure? My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and hosted the teaching champions podcast. And in our society, there's such a stigma on failure. We fear coming up short, not looking perfect, afraid of what others might think of us if we don't succeed. And I heard a talk a while back, that had a huge impact on how I viewed failure. And it had a huge impact on the message that I sent to my students about failure. And this story is all about Sara Blakely. And if you don't know who Sara Blakely is, she's the founder of Spanx. She's a self made billionaire. She started with only a few $1,000 and built Spanx into what it is today. And she had to overcome hurdle after hurdle along her journey. And I was listening to her talk one time on a podcast. And she told a story that she said had a message about what truly transformed her. And the way that she viewed failure. She said that when she was a child, she would come home from school, her and her brother, and her dad would be there. And at home, they would have these conversations about schooling their dad, he wouldn't ask her what she was successful at. He wouldn't ask her, you know, did you have 100 on your spelling test? Her father, he would ask her, what did you fail at today? And she said, it got to the point that if she didn't have something to tell him about what she failed at, that he would get upset about that. Because his whole thing was failure isn't coming up short. failure isn't about not being successful. True failure is not even try. And she said another thing that he would do that was pivotal with this, he would ask, Well, what did you learn from this? That reflection piece? Looking back? What did I learn? What can I do different? And she said this was one of the biggest lessons that she ever learned in her life that completely transformed her. And it helped her overcome hurdle after hurdle after hurdle. Because no longer does she you view failure is coming up short. Failure for her is not try. So someone who's a self made billionaire says that one of the most important lessons that she learned is that failure isn't coming up short, isn't being less than perfect. It's something that true failure is not even trying that maybe we should be asking ourselves, How do we approach value with our students? What are the words that we use when they come up? Sure. What is the body language that we give off when they make mistakes? Do we encourage our students to take chances? Do we encourage our students to put themselves out there and not be successful right away? Do we normalize making mistakes? Do we send that message to our students? That true failure is when they don't even try something that all of us should reflect on a little bit today. What message do we send to our students about failure? We've been blessed with another sunrise. I hope you have an awesome day.