You Cannot Be Scared to Fail

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one college for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and this is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. You know, what I wanna talk to you about today is the idea that success should be easy. And I don't know where this idea comes from.

I I it could come from the media. It could come from social media. Right? Whenever you're looking at social media, whenever you're looking at somebody's feed, you're kind of seeing the highlight reel. Maybe it comes from a lot of these success gurus out there who tell you they're going to be able to get you to a certain goal in eight weeks, twelve weeks, or or, you know, two weeks, or whatever it is.

Right? But I don't know where this comes from. Success is never easy. I don't care what you're doing. I don't care if you're bodybuilding.

I don't care if you're training for MMA. I don't care if you're in business. I don't care if you're trying to complete a college degree. I don't care if you are trying to get through boot camp, get in the military. I don't care what you're doing.

If you're trying to do anything that is worth it, it's going to come with sacrifice. It's gonna come with trials. It's gonna come with tribulations. You're gonna fall on your face. You're gonna make mistakes.

You're gonna screw up. You're gonna feel like you're never gonna get accomplished. And what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to dust yourself off, and you're gonna have to get back up again. You know, this is the thing, guys. I mean, I feel like whenever we're trying to go and we're trying to do something that's big, trying to trying to do something that's gonna be life changing, I feel like a lot of us feel like success should just come with a few weeks of effort or a few days of effort.

And when it doesn't, when we inevitably fall down, when it when we inevitably screw up, when we inevitably step step on our own dicks, you know, we we back off. And we tell ourselves, well, maybe it wasn't meant to be. Right? And it keeps happening over and over again. And then you get to a point to where, you know, you're settled in your life, you've you've got it as it is.

And you look at things that you would like to do with a skeptical eye and you'd say, you know what, that's that's gonna be too hard. You know, I'm never gonna be able to do that. I don't have that skill set. I'm just not good enough to do it. And we become scared to screw up.

We become scared to to fall on our faces. And if you're ever going to make it in your life, doing what you want to do, you can't be scared to screw up. You can't be scared to fail. You can't be scared to fall on your face. You know, I've failed so much in my life.

I've had years where I was wondering where the hell I was going, what the hell I was doing. I was wondering whether or not I was ever gonna come out of it. You know, when I was when I was starting off this podcast, you know, you put out an episode, and you're like, oh, man, people are gonna listen to it. And then you look at the the actual stats, and and and they're not going anywhere. Right?

And I did that for years. And it would come into my head. I would say, hey. You know what? Maybe maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

Maybe this isn't a valuable use of my time. And then what would inevitably happen whenever I did that is is somebody would contact me, and it would be a veteran who would listen to an episode, and they'd say, you know what? You helped me. I was having a really bad day. I listened to this episode or that episode, and that episode helped me get through my day.

It helped me get through my week. It helped me get work through these issues that I'm having. And that's what kept me going. But for a long time, there wasn't any feedback there. And same thing right now.

I'm I'm this past year, I'm I've I've started running a company, a manufacturing company out here in Florida. And, you know, I've I've had a lot of experience in business, but I've never done manufacturing before. And inevitably, I screwed up a few things. But what did I do? I I went.

I got books. I consulted with people who I knew in manufacturing. I found mentors, and I worked at it. And we're doing really, really well right now. And what I want you to understand here is that if I were scared to screw up, if I were scared of failure, then I would be nowhere.

I'd still be doing what I was doing. I would never had these opportunities. You cannot be scared to fail. You cannot be scared to fall on your face to step on your dick. You have got to welcome failure.

You've got to get it in your head, hey, I'm gonna screw up. There's gonna be days when it seems like life isn't going anywhere. There's gonna be days where I'm not getting any feedback. But that's okay. And it's okay because with it, I'm gonna learn something.

I'm gonna get out there. I'm gonna keep trying until I do get some feedback. And whether that feedback's good or bad, I am gonna keep going. I'm gonna dust myself off. I am gonna keep working every single day.

You do not win at life through home runs. Right? You might get a few. You might might be lucky enough to get one, But you win by getting base hits day after day. And prior to getting those base hits, you gotta work on your swing.

You gotta make sure that you have those mechanics down. Alright? You have Brazilian jiu-jitsu has taught me so much. It's taught me that it's okay to be a white belt. Right?

When I walked into that jiu-jitsu school the first day, I got my ass kicked. I was I was strong. I had a 600 pound deadlift at the time, and I got broken in half by a 140 pounder. And then I got broke broken in half by a girl, and then I got broken in half by everybody else in the school. But I kept coming back, and after a few months, I started being being able to survive.

And then today, I I I mean, I still get my ass kicked, but sometimes I kick some ass myself. And that's the way it goes. Right? You cannot be scared to fail. So whatever you're doing right now, if you got a dream, if you got something you wanna work at, think about what you're going to do.

Execute on it. And regardless of what happens, keep going. Do something every single day to get yourself to that goal. Do something. But if you sit there and you're paralyzed by fear because you just don't wanna fail, you're never gonna get anything done.

That's what I got for you guys today. I hope this resonates with you. I hope that these episodes are helping you out, and I hope that you're getting out there and you're living your best life. This is Chris Albert with the Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.