Mike Robbins is the author of the book Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken. He was interviewed for the power of purpose summit and here’s a few takaways that I got from him.
Freedom Through Failure
In life we’re driving to succeed and even if we’re not doing well at it we’ll try and try and try until the very bitter end. That is if you’re a driven individual. Many people do not have a lot of drive and therefore they float through life with out ambition, goals, or any indication of a path that they’re on. However, most people work, slave away, and try to earn more and more money and work very hard to support their families and themselves. Sometimes we get so caught up in working and succeeding that it takes a catastrophic failure to move forward or switch gears.
Steve Jobs spoke about this during his Stanford commencement address when he talked about getting fired from his own company. Looking back, he can see that it was for the best because it freed him from the responsibility and burden of Apple and allowed him to create Pixar and Next. If he’d never been fired, the world would have never been blessed with Monster’s Inc. or Toy Story.
My friend talked about this when she was beaten up by her husband. For years she endured emotional abuse, but when he finally physically abused her she felt that it was socially acceptable to leave. Before, with just emotional abuse, she was worried people would think that she didn’t try hard enough or wasn’t a good enough wife. However, no one would justify a man beating up his wife. Thus she left and was free to get a divorce and eventually meet a great man who loved her and cared for her.
Mike Robbins also encountered this when he was injured while playing baseball. His life was setup to be a professional baseball player and when he injured himself, he was greatly saddened, but deep down felt a kind of relief from the burden of social and family expectations to be a great baseball player. By himself he couldn’t tell everyone who had been rooting for him and supporting his baseball for almost two decades that he didn’t want to do it anymore. However, by being injured and being unable to play, he was freed from the burden of responsibility and allowed to change direction in his life.
Freedom without Failure
Now the reason each of these people tell their story is to help teach us through their example. They are working to free your mind from it’s self imposed social, familial, and other obligations that are not really there and allow you to move onto a new path freely and without having to endure the pain that they felt.
Hidden Obligations
The second main benefit from Mike’s failure is that it revealed to him some of the driving forces and reasons for continuing baseball even as he was feeling as though he didn’t want to pursue it anymore. A primary one, and one that many people feel, was an obligation to be the the “good kid” or the “perfect child”. The siblings who go off the deep end and reject their parents ideals and beliefs are viewed as “lucky to still be alive” and the parents will love them while telling the other child that they’re lucky they have “at least one good son” or “one of the kids turned out okay” all the while the “good son” or “good daughter” is living a life that is unsatisfying. This came up in the truth box where people want to get out of their religion, or career, or place they live, or degree program. But expectations set by the parents, leaders, and other outside forces keep them on the straight path to “happiness” as defined by their elders. Mike was able to discover that he had been secretly working to please his mother. His mother had come to all the games and sacrificed and after seeing her enthusiasm and her support, he couldn’t “let her down” and just quit. He felt trapped.
For more information you can buy his book, Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken from Amazon. or check out his website at mike-robbins.com