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Kevin Lowe: What was your biggest failure? Your biggest flop?
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Kevin Lowe: The thing that you honestly hate to even think about? You're embarrassed over
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Kevin Lowe: it. It was an epic failure.
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Kevin Lowe: Whatever that was for you, well, I want you to remember it.
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Kevin Lowe: I want you to bring it to the front of your mind because, well,
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Kevin Lowe: it's important for today's episode.
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Kevin Lowe: Because we are going to do what we do best. We are going to flip the script
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Kevin Lowe: on failure, letting you begin to see how, quite honestly, your most epic failure
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Kevin Lowe: could indeed lead to your greatest success.
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Kevin Lowe: It's all inside of today's 372nd episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
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Kevin Lowe: Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit,
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Kevin Lowe: Grace, and Inspiration.
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Kevin Lowe: What we're talking about today, it's not about you living life without failure.
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Kevin Lowe: No, because failing is just part of life.
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Kevin Lowe: Instead, what today is about is about reframing failure, looking at failures from a different view.
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Kevin Lowe: And ultimately, I want you to begin to start learning fast, thinking differently,
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Kevin Lowe: ultimately turning setbacks into epic comebacks.
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Kevin Lowe: Because, my friend, failure is temporary. There's always time on the other side
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Kevin Lowe: to course correct, to learn from your quote-unquote mistake,
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Kevin Lowe: your quote-unquote failure, and turn it around for something good in your life.
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Kevin Lowe: And if you want a real-life example of what I'm talking about,
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Kevin Lowe: who better to illustrate this idea than the one and only Michael Jordan?
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Kevin Lowe: Because did you know as a sophomore in high school, Jordan didn't make the varsity team?
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Kevin Lowe: Knowing the man that we know, it's hard to believe. We would think that,
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Kevin Lowe: wow, he just was born with massive talent, was extremely talented from the get-go.
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Kevin Lowe: But no, he realized he had to put in the work.
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Kevin Lowe: But what's powerful about this story is that Jordan used this quote-unquote
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Kevin Lowe: failure to fuel his success.
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Kevin Lowe: He let that light a fire in him.
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Kevin Lowe: And we all know the basketball player that Michael Jordan came to be.
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Kevin Lowe: And you have to wonder, would that ever have happened if he had not failed?
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Kevin Lowe: What would have happened if he did make the varsity team as just a sophomore?
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Kevin Lowe: Would he have gained the worth ethic that it took to become one of the greatest of all time?
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Kevin Lowe: Who only knows? But I have to believe with the way the story went,
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Kevin Lowe: that it all played an important role.
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Kevin Lowe: That failure reframed into success.
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Kevin Lowe: And that is exactly what I want for you.
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Kevin Lowe: So as we continue, which I'm going to have another real life example for you
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Kevin Lowe: that hits home close to me is, well, I want you to realize that failure,
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Kevin Lowe: it's part of the journey. Failure is part of success.
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Kevin Lowe: And that is because each time that something goes wrong, each time that we fail,
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Kevin Lowe: it gives us an opportunity to learn, to grow, to sharpen our sword a little bit more.
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Kevin Lowe: It helps us to become better at whatever it is that we're doing.
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Kevin Lowe: If you never drop a path, then you're never going to learn how to catch it better.
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Kevin Lowe: If you never fall off of the bicycle, well, chances are you're never going to
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Kevin Lowe: be very good at riding it.
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Kevin Lowe: If you never fall, if you never stumble, then my friend, I'm telling you,
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Kevin Lowe: you're not going to become the best that you can be.
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Kevin Lowe: And that is the truth with all of life's quote unquote failures.
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Kevin Lowe: Years, whether it's a failed relationship, whether it is a failed career,
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Kevin Lowe: you were fired, you quit, you gave up on it.
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Kevin Lowe: All of it, my friend, you may think of it as a negative,
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Kevin Lowe: but if you begin to see life from a little bit different view,
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Kevin Lowe: if you hopefully begin to see life through my eyes, then you begin to see the
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Kevin Lowe: good even in the midst of the bad.
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Kevin Lowe: And the best way for us to do this is for us to reframe, to redefine failure.
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Kevin Lowe: What I want you to do is to begin to see failure as a plot twist.
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Kevin Lowe: And the reason I chose the term plot twist is because that's exactly what they
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Kevin Lowe: are. It's not a failure. It's not an ending.
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Kevin Lowe: It's a twist in the plot. It's nothing more than an unexpected turn in your
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Kevin Lowe: story that's going to lead you maybe in a different direction.
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Kevin Lowe: It's going to have you getting on course where you're truly meant to be.
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Kevin Lowe: Because, my friend, I believe fully that life is not happening to us,
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Kevin Lowe: but rather life is happening for us.
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Kevin Lowe: And each failure, each thing that doesn't go right, well, I have to believe
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Kevin Lowe: that it's all for a reason because it's just trying to direct you to where you're meant to be.
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Kevin Lowe: So what I want you to gain is the idea that as you go through life and as things
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Kevin Lowe: go wrong, everything goes sideways, you fail.
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Kevin Lowe: I hope that you begin to slow down.
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Kevin Lowe: When things go wrong, I want you to just take a pause.
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Kevin Lowe: Whether it's right then or it's later that night when you're laying in bed,
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Kevin Lowe: and all you can think about is what you did wrong, how you failed today.
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Kevin Lowe: Instead, I want you to begin to look at it from a different angle.
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Kevin Lowe: I want you to ask, what is the lesson here? What can I gain from this?
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Kevin Lowe: What can I take away? How can I grow?
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Kevin Lowe: Why did this happen for me? Not why did this happen to me But the important
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Kevin Lowe: question to answer Is why did this happen for me.
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Kevin Lowe: When you begin to look at the challenges, the failures in this way,
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Kevin Lowe: you begin to see opportunities hidden inside of them.
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Kevin Lowe: Again, as I said, the theme here is life happening for you, not to you.
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Kevin Lowe: And I'm even talking about the bad stuff.
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Kevin Lowe: As I mentioned, I have another example for you. Something that is close to home.
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Kevin Lowe: Failure is not the end. Instead, it's just a twist in the plot.
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Kevin Lowe: In spring of 2020, so many of us, the entire world, had our lives completely turned upside down.
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Kevin Lowe: And the fact is, well, I was just the same.
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Kevin Lowe: I had been a travel agent for the previous seven years, building a brand,
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Kevin Lowe: building a company, designing luxurious honeymoons for my couples who I worked
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Kevin Lowe: with, to planning big cruises for churches.
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Kevin Lowe: I did all of that for seven years. And of course, as you would expect,
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Kevin Lowe: 2020 was going to be my best year ever.
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Kevin Lowe: I had so many trips on the books, had so many more prospects in the channel
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Kevin Lowe: to be booked. It was going to be an incredible year for my business.
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Kevin Lowe: And then, of course, March of 2020 came, and we all know the story.
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Kevin Lowe: The world shut down. The pandemic was running wild.
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Kevin Lowe: And in essence, for a travel business, everything ended.
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Kevin Lowe: Every trip I had on the books was canceled.
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Kevin Lowe: Every idea or plan I had for how this year was going to go was crushed.
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Kevin Lowe: Now, here's the takeaway. Is that sometimes you have to have a door shut in
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Kevin Lowe: order for you to find a new door to open.
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Kevin Lowe: For myself, I would never be here. I would never be talking to you here on this
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Kevin Lowe: podcast if it wasn't for that twist in the plot.
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Kevin Lowe: If I had never had everything wrecked and my travel agency completely destroyed,
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Kevin Lowe: I never would have started this podcast.
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Kevin Lowe: Because there we were in the height of the pandemic, locked away in quarantine,
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Kevin Lowe: and I found the time to invest in this new idea of starting a podcast.
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Kevin Lowe: Now, what I didn't know was where that podcast would go.
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Kevin Lowe: I honestly, I still thought I was going to be a travel agent.
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Kevin Lowe: It wasn't until I started the podcast, until I actually opened the new door
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Kevin Lowe: and walked through it, that I discovered a whole new world and a whole new part of myself,
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Kevin Lowe: a whole new dream that I didn't even know existed until I had the courage to open the door,
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Kevin Lowe: to walk through it, to discover what might be lying on the other side.
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Kevin Lowe: And here's the thing. Starting a podcast has been the greatest thing that has
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Kevin Lowe: ever happened in my life.
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Kevin Lowe: When I went blind back in 2003, my life as I knew it was destroyed.
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Kevin Lowe: Everything I loved was taken from me. And to be honest, I didn't understand
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Kevin Lowe: why this would have to happen to me.
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Kevin Lowe: Why would God make me blind? Why would he take away the very idea of being able
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Kevin Lowe: to see myself in the mirror, to be able to see the faces of my loved ones?
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Kevin Lowe: And yet, even something as traumatic as that, it was a plot twist.
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Kevin Lowe: It was up to me to be able to find good in it.
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Kevin Lowe: And starting a podcast, my goodness, did it help me to discover another amazing blessing in it all.
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Kevin Lowe: I am able to be here today, bringing you the insights that I've gained,
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Kevin Lowe: the lessons I've learned over experienced tremendous loss. but also then taking a failure and,
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Kevin Lowe: epic plot twist and turning it into something good.
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Kevin Lowe: Because my friend, I am here to tell you that if I can find good out of becoming
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Kevin Lowe: blind, if I can find good out of having a business I had created, had built,
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Kevin Lowe: had poured my life and soul into for seven years, if I can find good in all
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Kevin Lowe: of that, then my friend, I encourage you that you can do the same.
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Kevin Lowe: I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm not saying that my situation was any tougher than yours.
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Kevin Lowe: No, I don't doubt that you have more going on in your life than I ever have.
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Kevin Lowe: But I'm here to tell you that if I can do it, if I can find good and the bad
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Kevin Lowe: in my situation, then I promise that you can too.
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Kevin Lowe: Now, to help you along this way of trying to find the good and the bad to reframe
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Kevin Lowe: failure, it starts when failure happens.
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Kevin Lowe: I mentioned earlier, when a situation goes awry, instead of you immediately
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Kevin Lowe: breaking down, spiraling into that horrible thing of why me?
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Kevin Lowe: What if? What could I have done better?
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Kevin Lowe: Instead, I want you to just pause and begin to reframe it.
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Kevin Lowe: Again, asking yourself that powerful question. Why did this happen for me?
00:11:03.976 --> 00:11:07.856
Kevin Lowe: Not why did this happen to me, but why did this happen for me?
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Kevin Lowe: What am I supposed to learn from it? Why did this happen?
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Kevin Lowe: What am I supposed to gain from it? Because I guarantee you there is something
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Kevin Lowe: hidden inside of this failure that is meant for you.
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Kevin Lowe: My second step is for you to begin to look for new doors.
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Kevin Lowe: Find a door that's maybe already slightly open. It's begging you to give it a try. Why?
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Kevin Lowe: Because when failure happens, it gives us a chance to try something new,
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Kevin Lowe: to try a different door, as long as you have the courage to push it open.
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Kevin Lowe: This is your opportunity, is when failure happens, it's your opportunity to try something new.
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Kevin Lowe: And my third tip for you is when this does happen, and like I said,
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Kevin Lowe: failures are epic and they're also just minor. They're little things throughout
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Kevin Lowe: the day. We all experience them.
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Kevin Lowe: But what I want you to do is look back and see how you have overcome, how you have grown.
00:12:11.496 --> 00:12:16.596
Kevin Lowe: Maybe you didn't even realize it at the time, but you were already adapting and overcoming.
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Kevin Lowe: You were already reframing your failure without even realizing it.
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Kevin Lowe: So I encourage you to look back on life, to look back at what you've learned
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Kevin Lowe: from the mistakes you've made.
00:12:29.297 --> 00:12:33.557
Kevin Lowe: I encourage you to see, huh, maybe Kevin is right.
00:12:33.897 --> 00:12:38.577
Kevin Lowe: Maybe all those things that I viewed as a negative, which, yeah,
00:12:38.857 --> 00:12:42.497
Kevin Lowe: it doesn't mean that they were positive, but I did learn from them.
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Kevin Lowe: I have become a better version of me because of them.
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Kevin Lowe: I encourage you to spend the time to reflect, to think back,
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Kevin Lowe: because I guarantee you, my friend, it's going to help you as you continue on
00:12:55.517 --> 00:13:01.057
Kevin Lowe: with life, when you experience more ups and downs, when you have more failures.
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Kevin Lowe: So my friend, as I wrap up today's episode, I want to remind you,
00:13:06.377 --> 00:13:10.617
Kevin Lowe: maybe another way to look at failures is the stepping stones.
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Kevin Lowe: Each stepping stone you walk on is another failure, another mistake.
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Kevin Lowe: Another thing that, gosh, we all wish didn't happen, but it did and it's part
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Kevin Lowe: of life and that's okay because it's getting you to where you're meant to be.
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Kevin Lowe: It's a stepping stone leading you to exactly where you are meant to be, my friend.
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Kevin Lowe: This is for you. Life is happening for you, not to you.
00:13:37.617 --> 00:13:42.637
Kevin Lowe: So let me end with this, my friend. The things that we view as negative,
00:13:42.637 --> 00:13:45.317
Kevin Lowe: there's actually a positive hidden inside.
00:13:45.837 --> 00:13:50.677
Kevin Lowe: Each fall that we have, well, there is a reason for it.
00:13:50.777 --> 00:13:54.137
Kevin Lowe: And there is something that we can learn from it and we can take away and we
00:13:54.137 --> 00:13:55.937
Kevin Lowe: can grow bigger because of it.
00:13:55.937 --> 00:14:00.197
Kevin Lowe: My friend, as I have said multiple times in today's episode,
00:14:00.497 --> 00:14:06.257
Kevin Lowe: everything in life, even the bad stuff, it's happening for you, not to you.
00:14:06.417 --> 00:14:11.197
Kevin Lowe: So with that mindset, I encourage you to begin to look at things from a different
00:14:11.197 --> 00:14:15.057
Kevin Lowe: view, reframing your failures into success.
00:14:15.837 --> 00:14:18.857
Kevin Lowe: Until next time, my friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.
00:14:19.017 --> 00:14:23.177
Kevin Lowe: And this, of course, was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
00:14:23.177 --> 00:14:27.837
Kevin Lowe: If today's episode resonated with you, made you think of somebody,
00:14:27.837 --> 00:14:32.637
Kevin Lowe: it would mean the world to me if you would share today's episode with that friend,
00:14:32.837 --> 00:14:35.717
Kevin Lowe: with that person, with somebody who you think,
00:14:36.017 --> 00:14:40.057
Kevin Lowe: man, they could really benefit from hearing what Kevin has to share.
00:14:40.797 --> 00:14:44.457
Kevin Lowe: And with that said, I'm out of here. I will see you in our next episode.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:15:04.471