The instructor podcast with Terry Cook, talking with leaders, innovators, experts, and game changers about what drives them.

So, welcome to the F Word, the show where we discuss all things failure.

And today I am joined by the delightful De Kalyan McGregor Sims.

How are we doing, Decalion?

I'm very well.

How are you?

I am not bad at all.

How well did I manage your name then?

It's fun.

And to be fair, even if it were not good, I promise that whatever you come up with, I've heard worse, so it's okay.

But I didn't fail with it.

So there you go.

It worked.

Exactly.

But it would have been okay if you had.

There we go.

Right, show us over.

Because we've covered it.

No, it's.

That's what we're talking.

Say that we're talking failure.

We're talking about the F word that no one likes.

But I think it's really relevant to our industry because we're people, so we fail.

Also, you've got learners that fail.

We fail at standards checks and part threes and all other aspects of life.

But we are looking at three key questions today and talking around those.

So let's.

Let's start with the first one.

And that's the definition of failure, because I think everyone's got a slightly different definition.

So I'll be interested.

What's your definition of failure?

So when we spoke the other day about me coming on and sharing this conversation with you, and I'm very grateful you did, by the way, I deliberately didn't try to think about an answer to this question because I.

I didn't want to give you anything.

That sounded a bit of a.

Well, that sounds nice.

But I did kind of think about, well, what.

What is my definition of failure?

And I would say that I have quite a healthy relationship with failure.

And so something that I say to my pupils, something I say to PDIs, something I say in my personal life to my friends and family, is that failure isn't about getting something wrong.

It's not.

It's about refusing to learn from it.

And I'm not.

Although that wraps quite nicely into our industry.

I don't say that because this is a driving instructor podcast or that some of your audience will be driving instructors.

That's genuinely my feeling about it.

So failure isn't about getting something wrong.

It's about refusing to learn from it.

So I think true failure is when you let a setback to define you instead of using it to refine you.

That's the right way to Put it, we're all going to miss opportunities, we're all going to experience tough moments.

But I believe that we should lean into it and learn from it the same way that we tell our pupils.

And I think a lot of instructors will say that we've all had those pupils who stall the car and freak out and I'm never going to do this again.

And it's okay, it's an opportunity.

I feel very strongly about that.

So failure, in a word, is an opportunity.

The problem that I think a lot of people have is that they don't always truly understand that.

And if they kind of understand it theoretically, they don't always embody it as much as we want to.

Because it's hard, isn't it?

Like when you.

Something doesn't go the way you want it to go.

We always want that perfect outcome.

But the reality is it doesn't work like that.

The reality is that without failure, you don't have a clear vision of what, what, what you need to look like.

You don't have a vision of what better looks like and how can you continue to move forward.

So I hope that people who know me will advocate that I try and live that way.

Failure is an opportunity.

We learn from it.

It's only a problem if you refuse to learn from it.

How does that as an answer?

It's rare that I have someone that rephrases something that I say and makes me want to then change the way I say it.

But you just have.

Because one of the things I talk about quite a lot is pity pies.

So when something goes wrong, I throw myself a pew pie.

And depending on the scale of the thing that's gone wrong, it's the size of the pew pie.

So for example, when I failed my part three, I sold for a day.

When my dog died, I sold for six months.

It's how you learn from those things.

And I think that that pity party is refusing to learn.

And when that pity party stops, that's when you accept the learning.

So I'm going to stick to that example of those two examples, because when I failed my part three, I just sulked for a day.

I wasn't happy, I was miserable.

But I slept.

And the next day I was like, okay, what now?

And I got up and I reprogrammed, I reset, I looked at all the stuff I'm going to do to get better.

Because I then accepted that I was learning from this failure.

When my dog died, I didn't now obviously slightly different aspect of failure, but it took Me, about six months to go.

It was worth it.

The six years that I had with her was that time was worth losing her.

And for the six months, PayPal, I refused to learn that.

And then six months after, I then learned and I accepted that learn and moved on.

So how you phrase that as actually just, I think, is more an eloquent version of my.

My pity party.

Sure.

Well, I, I mean, do you know what, though?

I love.

I love your two case studies there.

Because first of all, I think.

Let me be really clear when I say I.

That failure is an opportunity.

We learn from it.

It's an opportunity to kind of go forward.

But I.

That's not to say that you're not entitled to sulk.

Like I.

And I, I say that to, to PDIs, when I support PDIs, when I support pupils.

For instance, if somebody has had an.

An unsuccessful test on a part two, for example, I, I actually, it's actually part of my advice.

Listen, give yourself an allocated amount of time to sulk, to stop, to be miserable.

You're allowed that.

Okay, this has been stressful.

You've put a lot of time into this.

You've put a lot of work into this.

You put a lot of potentially money into this.

Don't.

Don't deny yourself the entitlement to sulk.

We need that.

It's healthy.

The problem comes when the salt never ends and.

Or when the sulk becomes disproportionate and it ceases further progression.

Your case study about failing your part three, perfectly reasonable.

Your case study about your dog, something that is very close to my heart is the topic of grief, because first of all, I'm really sorry that that happened with your dog.

I really am.

That really cuts me off.

I went through a bit of a.

Journey is not the word I want to say, but I'm going to say journey with grief from a young age.

And I was experiencing grief from a very young age into adulthood, and I really struggled with kind of bringing that sulk to an end.

And I'm gonna.

In this case, the sulk is grieving.

So it's.

It's not quite the same.

You losing your dog is not on the same spectrum as failing your part three.

It's permanent.

You'll never have that back.

And you said something just then that was really interesting to me, which was.

It was worth it.

And that's so fascinating because.

And we're talking about a grand scale of, of suffering now, rather than just being unsuccessful on a part three test.

But I really struggled with grief For a long time because I argued.

I don't know if it is, and I'm not.

That's not my view now, but I would, I would lose somebody close to me, some of the most dearest, most cherished people in my world.

And for a long time I would sit and think, I have to carry this, this turmoil for the rest of my life.

And let's just assume that the likely probability is that I'll live to a normal age.

So let's say that maybe, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have another 50 years.

And I have to carry that for 50 years.

And if that relationship was one that lasted 10 years, it seemed like a really unbalanced mathematical equation.

And I used to, I went through for probably about a year.

I really coiled with that question, is it worth it?

I'm.

I don't know that it is.

I'm not, I'm not sure it is worth it because.

Because I'm con.

For the rest of my days, I will suffer.

And then I.

One step further was, okay, so when does that stop.

When does that stop being accurate?

So if I'm 70 and I lose the love of my life, and we've been married our whole lives, and is that going to be.

Does that make it okay?

Because maybe I'll grieve for less time than I enjoyed their presence and their relationship and their love.

And then I thought, well, no, I don't know that that makes it better because the longer it goes on, the harder it's going to be when it ends.

And so then it's like, oh, gosh, like, what's, at what point does it shift from.

It is worth it.

So I, eventually I was struggling because I was, I was really presented with this really awful question, like, is it worth it?

I'm not sure.

And if, if you and I are cherished individuals to one another, I'm, I'm, I, I'm gonna lose you.

Or you're gonna, I'm gonna go first.

And, and, and, and you're gonna.

And the only thing that I think is worth.

Than me losing someone that I care deeply about is the idea that I go and I leave them in despair.

So I, I really had this awful time with trying to figure out exactly what you just said about your dog, which was, it was worth it because it was like, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Is it, is it.

If I, I lost my twin sister at 27 years old from the point of Existence.

She.

She was my twin.

She was biologically connected to me.

I cherished her more than I love myself.

I've never loved somebody more than I love myself.

And I lost her very suddenly and very awful circumstances.

And for a long time it was like, I don't know if that was a good trade, because I will spend.

If I.

If I spend rest of my life living an extra 50 years, maybe I will carry that.

And as I said, it's.

Mathematically, it was a.

I don't know that it was a good trade.

And then it was.

And then I asked myself things like, well, what, what if?

At what point does that change?

At what point?

So if.

If we were 75 and I lost her, would that have been better mathematically?

And I'm not sure it would have been, because then the longer I've had her, the harsher the.

The losses.

So I went through this for a long time, and I eventually was able to kind of zoom out.

I was eventually able to kind of.

Okay, so I keep saying to myself, this is, you know, in a hundred years, nothing, none of this is going to matter.

My cherished relationship with you, for instance, will not matter.

Everything that's important to me now will not matter.

What's the point?

We'll all be dead.

Why are we doing this?

And this is an extent.

This is connected to failure.

Everything I care about now, why do I care?

Everything that I'm failing or accomplishing, why do I care?

And then I realized the problem is that I'm looking at a timeline that brings no purpose and meaning into my life.

And I had to change the timeline, and I had to look at a timeline that brings purpose and meaning into my life.

And so to loop full circle back to where we started, I had to pick a timeline that brought relevance and purpose into my life, such that success and failure were relevant and necessary.

And so in my case, if I have my dog, for example, I need to take care of this dog today.

I'm not thinking about tomorrow.

I'm thinking about right now.

This dog needs my love.

This dog needs to be fed.

I have a responsibility to this dog.

I need to get up.

I have to take care of my.

My.

My family.

I.

And so right now, for the next 24 hours, I have purpose and meaning.

And I would loop full circle into what you said about your dog.

And I can honestly say that I have, having been through my own version of what you described, concluded that it is worth it because.

Because grief is the price we pay for love.

And the greater the Grief, the greater the love.

And so I'm so happy.

I guess my point is, Terry, I'm so pleased.

I'm so.

I'm really gutted that that happened and that you're.

You went through that, but I'm so relieved that you are able to think about it that way and to come back to failure.

Not that I think losing your dog was failure, but it's.

It puts us in a similar state of mind, I think.

I'm so pleased that you seem to have that kind of relationship with failure or with misfortune that.

What am I going to take from this?

How am I going to be better from this?

How can I learn from it?

How can I lean into this?

How can I make this make me a better person?

And I want people to do the same thing with failure.

So let me ask you a question.

So, because you're a fat, you are actually a fascinating case study for this.

Okay, so you are the driving instructor, podcast man.

Okay, so, so.

And why did you start the podcast?

Because that.

That's a bold move, putting yourself out there, inviting guests, steering conversation, having that responsibility, telling the world you're going to do it, and then worrying that maybe nobody's going to listen or nobody's going to want to come on and be a part of your show.

A lot of people will never have taken that step.

So you tell me why.

Well, just for I answer that, I will say I appreciate that sharing what you just shared there, because I think that's really powerful and think I agree with everything you've said.

It's that idea of go back.

Was it worth it?

Yes, because the more time, the more we enjoy spending time with someone while it's going to hurt afterwards.

So there is an equilibrium there.

I believe how, you know, people listening might have slightly different takes on that.

And everyone, you know, has the right to their own opinion, but it's how I view it.

It sounds like we're in a similar way, but in terms of the question of sort of the why I started the podcast and the fear behind that.

So I can remember thinking to myself, who am I to release this instructor podcast because I qualified in 2018.

I want to say qualified in 2018.

And I started planning the podcast at the end of 2022, so there was only sort of three to four years there.

And I'm thinking, oh, everyone knows more than me.

Why should I do this?

But it comes it.

I think there's kind of obviously always more than one reason, but I still think the biggest reason why I Did it was because what I wanted from the industry wasn't readily available.

You know, I wanted to easy access to stuff about coaching.

I wanted stuff about mental health and mindset about how to manage failure, you know, not just about standards check stuff.

And I felt like the industry was failing us at providing that.

And it was there, you know, there were some people doing it, but you really had to dig for it.

And I couldn't find it.

And so I thought, right, okay, the other thing I want is I want it to be easy to find.

So let's create this resource of a podcast where I can talk about this stuff and make it easy for people to find.

So do you feel like you've built something real through that podcast?

100%.

But, you know, sticking to this, the failure motive.

I have failed loads at this podcast.

There are some episodes where I've not done very well.

I did one episode where I stormed because I was on.

I had so many painkillers and I didn't realize.

Now, to be fair, no one picked it up.

But when I listen back, I can notice.

I just, I'd say kind of way too many painkillers before.

And you know, I've done done this where I forgot to schedule the episode.

So rather than going out at 6am, I've walked my.

Oh, crap, why did I.

Downloads.

And then I've had to adjust it.

There's been episodes where people have no show.

There's been episodes where I've got dates wrong.

You know, so much failure throughout.

But I've consistently learned from that.

And some of those feelings go back to what was saying before.

They feel horrible, but they're always worth it.

You know, I don't want, you know, you give me the choice.

I'd rather be successful every time because it feels nicer, but they're worth it.

And I can even flip this back to my part three again.

I'm so pleased now that I failed my part three first time because I'm in such a better position for this.

And I think that the contrast to that is that I passed my standards check six months later.

And it was the worst thing that could have happened to me because it gave me a false sense of security.

I probably didn't deserve to pass.

I just scraped it.

I think it's just being nice to me.

And I didn't go and get further training straight away, which I planned to do anyway.

But because I passed my standards check, oh, I don't need further training now.

And I kind of stepped back for about a year before coming into it.

So I think that.

That.

That failure.

Success.

The failure often inspires us to do more, and the success can sometimes have the opposite effect.

Would you agree?

I.

I think I can't.

You.

You've put it.

I can't put it any better.

You.

99% of driving instructors will pass their part three, and they will not pursue further training even when they want to, even when they tell themselves they need to, even when they know that they still have area for improvement.

Most of them, within 12 months, will not.

How many will pursue further training after they've been unsuccessful?

Most of them.

So isn't that crazy to think.

And so I.

That kind of makes my point.

And, like, failure is an opportunity.

So I.

But I want to.

I want to look back because I'm.

I want to come back to what I was saying about your.

Your podcast is a brilliant example of failure.

So it's.

It's a.

It's a brain.

I need you to carry on there.

Don't just say your podcast is a real example of failure.

You need to add context.

Look.

No, it's a brilliant example of your.

Your podcast is a brilliant example of your attitude to failure.

So I asked you why you're doing it.

You said, you know, there was a need in the industry and that you felt like you could bring something to it that hadn't been there.

And I asked you, you know, do you feel that you've.

You've built something real in this podcast in this industry?

You said yes.

And I would ask you, do you think it was meaningful?

And I suspect you would say yes.

And was it transformative?

And I suspect you would say yes.

And so that's the pathway, isn't it?

So the pathway is building something meaningful through doing the hard things, putting yourself out there, even when you think you could fail, pushing through the discomfort and growing because of it.

Most people never even start.

And what was the hardest part for you was probably a collection of all of those things.

And I think you're asking me about failure.

My.

My definition.

I think you are a far more fascinating case study.

If anyone has a question about what failure should mean to me, what my definition is of failure, what my attitude to failure should be.

They need to look at what you're doing, because who am I as a driving instructor who's only been going a few years, and suddenly you've now become the driving instructor podcast man.

And it never would have happened if you had a different relationship to failure.

So what a wonderful example you are for that.

I appreciate that, but I'm still just chuckling over there.

It's a prime example of failure.

And that's going to be my tagline for the show.

Your podcast is a prime example of failure.

Um, so, yeah, but no, I, I love that, that definition and I love, I love that conversation, and I appreciate those words as well, by the way, but I want to move on because I want to look at the, the second question we'll actually discuss, which is I like to probe this a little bit.

And, and, well, it's quite simply this.

What are you failing at right now?

I would say that I fail all the time.

I'm failing at constantly, all the time.

I'm always failing my.

I'll give you an example.

My girlfriend dances.

She's a dancer.

I'm not a dancer.

I don't have a musical bone in my body.

But she likes dancing.

And so we dance.

We dance together.

We've done classes.

She's amazing at it.

The teacher loves her.

The teacher hates me.

She's always in the advanced corner of the dance class, and I'm always in the useless corner of the dance class.

But it's something that we could do together because one day, maybe I'll be able to dance with her to.

In a way that isn't shameful and embarrassing.

But I fail at things every single day.

I set myself goals every single day and I don't achieve them.

I, I dance with my girlfriend and I can't dance and she can dance.

I also, I, I don't know if you know this, but I, I, I fight as a hobby, so, like the whole MMA thing, I've got friends who've been fighters for 20 years and they're amazing and I'm useless and I just get filled in every week and so.

But I know that it's not quite the answer you're looking for, but I, I am constantly failing.

I fail at putting my phone down early enough so that I can sleep properly.

I fail at trying to start new skills.

I fail at being a better person.

I fail at being a better instructor.

I fail at being a better boyfriend.

I fail at being a better son all the time.

There are things that I want to do all the time, but the difference with me is I'm okay with being crap at something.

I'm okay at, you know, not being good.

Because failure is the first rung on the ladder to success, isn't it?

And that's exactly what I try and teach my learners.

That's exactly what we teach.

I'm sure you do when something doesn't quite go right, it's, don't worry.

This is an opportunity.

I've already said it.

This is an opportunity.

Why did that happen?

What went wrong?

What was going on in your mind when you made that decision or when you failed to make the decision?

Do you understand it?

How could we do it better if we did it again?

If you could do it again and it could go the way you wanted it to go, what would that look like?

And so, so many people, I think, are hard, harsher on themselves for failure and more cruel because of the.

The gaps in their perfection that they want.

And I just, you know, it's part of the process.

The only difference between someone who becomes a brilliant driver, for example, and someone who, who doesn't is the way that they are willing to respond to being bad at something.

So I, I wanna, I really want Terry to give you some wonderful, beautiful answer to something that I'm failing at right now.

But I do it all day, every day.

I have no natural talents.

I'm so useless at so many things, but I'm okay with that.

And so, yeah, I feel like that's not a very good answer to your question.

I disagree.

I think it's a really good answer because you've been honest and you spoke about the things that you're not good at or that you struggle with, that you find challenging, but also talking about how you're okay with that because we're not going to be good at everything.

There's loads of stuff that I'm crap at.

And if we again, go back, I like using learners as examples.

So you think of that.

We've all had them, the learners that beat themselves up when something goes wrong.

That question I often ask is, would you let someone else talk to you like that?

The answer's always no.

But they'll talk to themselves like that.

And we talk to ourselves like that sometimes.

So I was just really pleased to hear that you accept that.

And I'm sure there's times you don't.

I'm sure there's times you get frustrated or whatever, but overall we, we accept it.

But I do want to dig into one in particular a little bit because it is one that, that I'm struggling with right now.

And that's the phone.

So you mentioned, like, particularly when you were sleeping.

But my one with a phone right now is dopamine.

It's.

It's the dopamine kick from a phone.

It's the.

I've got to check it every two minutes and it's not like a conscious thing.

It's that subconscious I need my dopamine kick of getting a message or saying, I've got a message or seeing if someone's tagged me on Facebook or, or whatever.

And towards the end of last year, I did really well at getting out of that habit that got me fixed this year.

I'm worse than ever right now.

That fall is giving me more grief than ever.

So I thought it was interesting to pick at that one.

Is there anything that you're failing at right now that you're actively trying to improve upon?

Yeah, well, I mean, in relation to the phone or just separately, just one.

Thing that you're actively trying to improve upon right now?

Yeah, I, I'm really, really trying to improve on starting and ending the day properly.

I guess some people might call that, Some people might call that a morning routine and an evening routine or a nighttime routine, but whatever you want to call it.

But I, I have a bit of a, A bit of a habit of being a million miles an hour like you.

I'm constantly spinning many plates and I have some sympathy for what that feels like in.

With.

You've told me in the past some of the things that you're also juggling.

And I know that there are a lot of people in this industry who will be listening to your podcast who are either ADIs or PDIs who are trying to juggle their journey in the new.

In either a new journey in the industry or, or a continued journey in the industry.

Trying to juggle things that I'm not even contending with.

Families, kids, marriages, relationships, eating right, waking up early, getting, you know.

But for me, I have this problem of being a hundred miles an hour constantly.

And I, it's like, I liken it to.

I don't know if you train, but I train quite a lot.

And one of the age old expressions that you hear a lot is you can be in the gym all you want, but if you don't have appropriate rest, that's where the growth happens.

And so you need to stimulate growth with rest.

And so we need to stimulate growth with the right kind of rest.

And so one thing that I'm really trying to do is, um, put my phone down at night and stop working and just stupid things like just trying to fall asleep in a healthy way.

So how can I, what can I do differently that's gonna help keep me sleeping rather than keep me awake?

Well, I can sit and I can just breathe and I can do some breathing exercises and I can, I can Ensure that I haven't.

My diet is healthy so that I'm not pumped full of all of the wrong kind of crap.

And I'm conscious of the things that I consume visually, audibly or orally in the hours that lead up to my, my sleep.

And I try and wake up and I try not to look at my phone right away.

And, um, I've, I try not to give myself any excuse.

People talk about, oh, you know, I can't leave my phone in the next room because it's my alarm clock.

Go and buy an alarm clock.

It's really simple.

Like, so I leave my phone in the next room.

I make sure I don't look at it for at least 45 minutes before I wake up.

I try and drink water.

Oh my God, how difficult is that in our job because you constantly have to run and use a toilet.

So that's inconvenient.

And so I don't do it.

And so I'm trying to have, especially in the mornings, I'm trying to be kinder to myself in the mornings.

And that starts the night before, by the way.

A morning routine starts the night before.

And so I'm trying to be more generous and more kind to my routines so that the day can be better.

And it's so hard because how do you juggle it all?

Like, I don't want to sound like somebody who is, you know, doesn't really have any real problems.

It's not lost on me that we're not living in a time where we're chucked in the middle of warfare and so on.

But it's like, oh, you gotta, you gotta eat right.

But you also need to make sure that you take care of your body physically, otherwise you'll die young.

And then you have to make sure that you.

So you have to eat the right foods.

But then eating the right foods normally involves self discipline and it usually costs more to eat healthy.

And then it usually takes more time to prepare that food that's more healthy.

And then you should, you should probably take some kind of supplements so that your body is getting the nutrients it deserves and the needs so that it can function.

By the way, don't drink any caffeine after 12 midday because it's not good for your system.

And don't look at your phone.

But you also need to make sure that you have some kind of take care of, give yourself some time for yourself and do some yoga and get to the gym.

And don't forget to be a good parent.

And by the way, the Dog has to be taken out.

And don't forget that you owe your spouse some time.

And how do we juggle all this?

And this is before I've even got to work.

Feel like a brook.

And you.

I know, but I'm interested on how do you get on with that.

How do you juggle all of these things that we're told to juggle?

It's the.

I can't.

The most important thing is the most important thing.

You can only do one thing at once.

So you could have that.

That to do list of 10 items.

Only one of them can ever be the most important.

So if I'm sat outside at someone's house waiting for a driving lesson, I might have to ring up and pay a bill.

I might have to look after my kids, I might have to whatever.

But at that moment, the only thing that actually matters is that student on that driving lesson.

Everything else is irrelevant because I've got to deliver that driving lesson.

Now, if just before that driving lesson, the school has run up and said, oh, keep in mind, I've not got kids.

This is an example.

But the school rings up and says, oh, kids ill, second hospital, you need to come.

All of a sudden, that driving lesson is no longer relevant.

The only thing that matters is getting to look after my kid.

So in the short term, in the now, in the moment, the only thing that matters is the most important thing, which is the thing you're doing right now.

Nothing.

When we're recording this podcast, I'm not checking my phone.

I'm not, you know, nipping out to do anything else.

It's like this podcast is the only thing that matters.

All my other screens are shut down.

So day to day, that's how I get through it.

Because I don't give a crap about anything else, apart from the thing that I'm focusing on.

One of the other things that I found, and this is probably a me thing rather than a general thing, but I think there's a key in here somewhere, is if I've got driving lessons.

Cause I still aim to do sort of 16 to 20 hours a week.

So if I've got driving lessons, I don't do a to do list before those driving lessons, all the night before.

Because during the day I'm going to be thinking about my to do list rather than the important things which are my driving lessons.

So I'll do the driving lessons, then I come home, then I do a to do list, because then I also know how I feel.

Have I got the energy to do this So I think again, that's a Terry thing.

So, but working out what works for you, maybe you're someone that doing you to do list the night before is then what helps you that day.

But for me as a negative impact because then it impacts negatively my driving lessons because then I'm not thinking about the most important thing.

So I would say that is where you start.

If you're struggling there in the moment, the only thing that matters is the moment outside of the moment when you're planning.

That's where you get good at scheduling.

Sure.

I think that's really good advice.

It's funny because I, I, I'm constantly like trying to think of 19 different things.

And so for me it's quite good to make the list so that I can kind of let it go from my mind because it's there, it's written down there.

I'm not going to forget that.

I can forget about it now and I can come back to it because I know it's written down.

So that actually really helps me let go of it.

If I don't write it down, then my brain the whole way through that two hour lesson is going to be thinking, oh, don't forget to do that thing, don't forget that thing.

And then I'm not in the moment.

So it's, it's richly ironic because the total opposite works for me.

But the point that you're making is find what works for you.

And that's great advice.

Yeah, there's, there's a brilliant book by a chap called Simon Hartley, been on the podcast, obviously, and it's called Two Lengths of the Pool.

And he's talking about how he was working with an Olympic swimmer.

Now, Simon Hartley isn't a swimming coach, just to clarify, but this Olympic swimmer was struggling to focus on his swimming.

And Simon being Simon says, well, what problems have you got?

You've got to do with swim to the limbs at pool.

And at first this swimmer fell out of him.

He's like, no, there's so much more.

There's training, there's this, there's this, you know, listen all the things.

And Simon's like, yeah, but when you're in the pool, what are you doing?

You're swimming two lamps.

And that's when like you had that realization that, yeah, when I'm in the pool, the gym is irrelevant, the food is irrelevant, the sleep is irrelevant because I'm in the pool.

But then when I'm going to bed, the pool is irrelevant because I'm going to bed.

And it's that categorization.

And I will just chuck one other thing actually before we move on.

It's the.

The to do list.

So I do a brain dump.

I regularly do brain dumps.

I've got a list of my four lists.

Everything that I need to do goes on this brain dump that doesn't get moved into my to do list until I do the to do list.

So I get what you're saying.

Cause I forget stuff like a morpho.

So it needs just tracking in that to do list.

And then it gets moved over when I create it.

The.

The downside is that when I have a day with no lessons, that to do list is really long.

So.

But let's.

Let's move on.

Cause I want to move on to the third question, one that's a bit more positive.

What's an example of where failure has led to success?

I would say to continue the trend of not truly answering your question the way that maybe I could.

I would say that like every single thing I've ever been successful at started with failure.

So.

And I don't say that to be coy, and I don't say that to be evasive.

I really mean that.

I mean that very literally.

I'm not naturally good at anything, truly.

I don't say that for your sympathy, although I'll take it.

But I wasn't a.

I wasn't a very normal child.

I wasn't.

I was confused.

I did not do well with the natural education system.

I wasn't.

I was homeschooled for a long time.

I say homeschooled with.

With quotations.

Because I felt was just my parents keeping me at home and not educating me.

I had no sense of, like, what norm was.

I grew up in the slums of kind of various places.

We grew up in abandoned buildings.

I didn't understand normal things, like, so I didn't know what.

I didn't know what birthdays was, like a crazy thing.

But just to put that into context, this is how weird and feral I was as a child and how weird and feral my childhood was.

I was like 8 or 9 when I first found out what a birthday was.

And so I didn't understand social norms.

And so that sounds like that's.

Well, that.

What the hell's that got to do with the question?

Well, I'll.

I'll explain.

When you are at a level where you don't even comprehend fundamental, basic social norms, like what a birthday is, you.

You are so disconnected from the world that every single day you are kind of not in the real world with people.

And so when eventually my parents gave up and decided to send me to school, I was a weird child.

I wasn't normal.

I didn't understand social norms.

I didn't know how to behave.

Um, I had no natural talents, I had no hobbies because we were living in an abandoned building.

So what.

Where.

Where the hell am I going to start a hobby like trampolining?

And I.

I couldn't read, I couldn't write.

I was just a weird kid.

And so I really mean it when I say this, Terry.

I started learning very late, and I was about 10 when I first started learning the kind of things that kids learn when they're very small.

I was learning social norms.

I was learning to, like, I remember I would say things to people as a child and I would always be.

It was a really.

I would get curious responses.

And I used to think, well, I don't understand why this is a weird response because I didn't have those norms.

So from a young age, I was playing catch up and I had no conventional influences.

I didn't really have guidance.

I didn't.

I certainly didn't have financial support.

And so I didn't have a head start in anything I wasn't good at anything.

Anything I liked, I was terrible at.

So I was genuinely, sincerely bad at everything.

And yet, here's the thing.

Anything I'm good at today started with true, genuine, utter and complete incompetence and regular failure.

But because, maybe because I was just a weird kid, I.

That, that didn't bother me.

Like, I, I knew that I was terrible at everything.

I couldn't read and write.

As I said, I.

I couldn't fit in with social norms.

And I would do and behave in really weird ways.

But because of that, I didn't have.

You know, we talk about social norms, it's this.

We have this social norm attitude towards failure.

And I didn't have that.

In a way, that was kind of a blessing because I just didn't comprehend how the average brain worked.

And so when things were not good, it didn't matter because I just enjoyed doing it.

And so I was never thinking about where I'm going to be, what I want to do.

Clearly now I've.

I'm not quite the feral child I used to be.

And so I have a bit more longsight in what I do.

But my point is this.

I wasn't focused on where I was.

I wasn't focused on where I wanted to be.

I was just Focused on this is what I want to do.

And the beauty is that even now, today, as a driving instructor, I never had visions of being a driving instructor.

I wish, Terry, that I could tell you that I was seven years old, and I knew that my destiny was to change the industry and revolutionize how people thought about driving instructors, because we do have certain stereotypes in this industry.

That's not it.

I just found something that I wanted to do or found something that I didn't want to do and did something else.

And I was unsuccessful at a lot of it.

I didn't conform with the way I was trained as a driving instructor.

I didn't think it was a very good way of doing it.

Whether I was right or wrong is not the point.

And so I, I was everything, like now, I, I, I consider it a success.

Just that I'm here now and I'm able to talk to genuinely inspiring people like yourself.

And you do inspire me.

And you asking me to come here and talk to you is, is what a wonderful privilege that is.

And I.

So my point is that the failure is just the first rung on the ladder to success, as I said.

And I'd never, Terry, I'd never insult you by telling you what to think, but I do hope that anyone listening to this, and maybe even yourself, I do want to help people understand how to think, because the answers and the breakthroughs, the success, all of that is gonna, you know, that's gonna come from you.

But my job, when I think about how I can help people, is, is how to help them think differently about their own relationship with failure.

So failure isn't something to avoid.

It's something to embrace.

It's normal, it's necessary, it's the doorway to growth.

And as soon as you can shift your mindset from I'm failing to I'm learning, then everything changes.

And so I was failing constantly, quite literally, in ways that the average person probably didn't fail.

And here I am, somebody that can string a sentence together and read and write and, and teach people to drive.

And I'm responsible for training driving instructors all around the uk, and, and I genuinely believe that I'm helping people because of the failures that I have.

And so, yeah, I, I don't think that I've answered your question, but I, I, I'm, I'm.

Every single thing I've ever done that has failed has led me to where I am today.

And so I failed a lot of things, tragically, in terrible ways.

And it, it is okay.

It works out in the end, I.

Promise, I think you have answered the question and you finish with my favorite phrase, kind of, which is, if it's not, what is it?

Let's say it'll be all right in the end.

And if it's not all right, then it's not the end.

But.

Right.

I think one thing I do just want to touch back on that you said there, that I think in particular I want to dig into a little bit, is that you didn't know what you wanted to do, so you kept finding things that you didn't like doing, and then you'd go on and find something else.

And I think that's massively underrated because it's like when I have that rare, elusive day off where I have nothing scheduled in, I always get stressed over what I want to do that day.

And I have to start by going, what I don't I want to do.

And then I'll rule all the things out.

And then often you're just left with, right, okay, cinema.

Excellent.

That sounds great.

Why didn't I just think of that in the first place?

But, yeah.

Do you think that people.

I don't want to sit, like, use people too generally, but do you think that is where some people struggle?

That idea of looking for what they want rather than what they don't want sometimes, which can be.

Work both ways.

Yeah, like, definitely.

And that's true both ways.

I.

I literally tell my pupils and the PDIs that I support what a privilege it is to be here failing miserably.

Because failures give you something priceless, a clear vision of what you need to do better.

You are, again, another example of that.

I like you.

I didn't necessarily think that I was going to be where I am.

When I was 20 years old, I found something I was trying to avoid things that I hated doing.

And so I kept trying things until I found something that not just I didn't hate, but I really quite loved.

And I really quite love what I do.

And I know you do, too.

And I know that you feel very magically, passionately about this industry.

And if there were more people like you, Terry, this industry would look totally different.

And frankly, it needs.

It needs to be totally different.

So lean into it.

Just like, it's okay.

I'm telling you now, anyone who is listening to this, I'm telling you now, every single thing you are failing at right now, every single thing you have failed at in the past, whether you remember them or not, that will lead you to a whole bunch of stuff that.

That you can't fathom right now that will take you to places that you never envisaged in your wildest dreams.

So all I want you to do is just.

Just accept all that didn't go how I perhaps would have liked it to a moment ago.

But I know that one day down the line, and I don't know when.

I don't know how I'm going to be better for it.

And I was 21 years old when I became a driving instructor.

I became a driving instructor because I hated my last box.

And now here we are talking to people that I possibly will never meet on your wonderful podcast, training driving instructors all around the UK and trying to change the industry in genuinely and sincerely a positive way, trying to combat stereotypes.

And that all came because I just hated my boss and I wanted to do something different, so I just threw myself into it, and I thought, if.

Yeah, that'll work out.

You want to.

Is there anything else you want to touch on today?

Well, I guess I'd like to know your definition of failure.

So I think it's similar, maybe just a different wording.

So I kind of have cheaply two definitions.

But the definition of the technicality of failure for me is when something doesn't go according to plan.

So if I go back to my two examples before, when I failed my part three first time, well, that didn't go according to plan.

When my dog died, that didn't go according to plan.

She was gonna live forever.

You know, that's what was gonna happen.

Obviously, that was, you know, that was my plan.

So things don't go the way I look at failure is something not going according to plan.

But then the.

The second definition is it is an opportunity to learn and develop, is an opportunity to change direction and evolve.

So they're kind of the.

The two separate definitions I use.

I like that.

Do you want to take a moment to tell people where they can find you and what they have to offer?

To be honest with you, Terry, I am.

I always.

I'm not always the most easy person to find.

I've got the.

I'd be a terrible criminal because you could just chuck my name into any search, Any.

Any search method, and you'll find me.

But I train driving instructors with Go Green.

I support driving instructors on Lou's PDI group, which is, as you know, was the PDI group that was set up by my hero, my mentor, which was Lou Walsh.

And she.

I was very privileged that she asked me to come and be a member of the team before she passed away suddenly and, and awfully a couple of years ago.

Well, a year and a half ago now.

And so the PDI group is a brilliant space for anybody who just wants to be in a supportive area with no bias.

We deliberately try not to, you know, we're not here to give our opinions on anything or anyone in the industry.

We're just there to give people the information they need to go forwards in a.

In an area that is hopefully kind and non judgmental.

And that is, as you'll know probably better than me, something that is shamefully difficult to find in this industry is online platforms that are safe spaces that are non judgmental.

And so we try and control that and create that environment.

So if you are a PDI and you're looking for support, you can find me in there in that group.

Blue's PDI group.

If you're looking for support, you can find me on Go Green driving instructor training.

You can just literally put my name into Google and you'll find me.

I'm based in Portsmouth on the south coast, so if you're around, come and say hello to me.

I want to know your journey.

I want to know how I can help or even if you just want to chat, I'm a fairly open book.

I will include links to Go Green and Blue's PDI Group in the show Notes for everyone.

But I'll take a moment to thank you for joining us today.

The call.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you, Terry.

You're awesome.

The instructor podcast with Terry Cook, talking with leaders, innovators, experts and game changers about what drives them.