Inner Excellence in Job Search: Embrace Feedback, Not Failure

"There is no failure, only feedback. Success and failure are highly interrelated, equally important, and labeled as opposites by our culture."

- Jim Murphy 

On January 12^th, 2025 the Philadelphia Eagles were playing the Green Bay Packers.  The Eagles went on to win that playoff game.  During the game the FOX broadcasters showed the Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown readying Jim Murphy’s ‘Inner Excellence’ book on the sidelines. A.J. Brown was one of the most impactful wide receivers in the game and helped the Eagles go on to win the Super Bowl that year.

One of my son’s is an Eagles fan and he asked me to order him a copy of ‘Inner Excellence’, which I did.  I started to read a bit of it myself and was struck by one of the many great messages in the book and how it could relate to the job search.

There is an interesting backstory to this.  Jim Murphy (the author) had written a version of this book and got it published in 2009.  It didn’t find its audience and had slow sales.  Jim got the rights to the book back in 2018 and created a revised edition and self-published it in 2020 on Amazon.  When A.J. Brown was shown reading this book, Jim Murphy had sold only five copies of the book during one week in December and was struggling to pay his bills. A few weeks later he had sold more than 200,000 copies and he was ranked as the number one seller on Amazon’s platform.

Ironically, Jim was struggling and working through one of his own maxims.  There is no failure, only feedback.

This relates to the job search effort in a couple ways that I wanted to explore a bit. Somehow you got into a position where you are searching for a job.  This is different for everyone, but you need to embrace the idea that however you got in this position it wasn’t the result of a failure.  It is, however, an opportunity for feedback. Spend a bit of time on self-reflection and the course of events.

Maybe you just graduated from college.  Did you focus on getting a summer internship?  Did you network as much as possible?  Did you do some ‘extra’ things to build a stronger experience set and differentiate yourself?

The market, or your market, possibly took a downturn.  How could you have perhaps seen it coming?  What other actions could you have taken leading up to the headcount reduction? For future reference, what positions didn’t get cut? Is this a good industry/market to be working in?  Are there frequent cycles of boom and bust?

Perhaps you didn’t perform well.  Could you identify some extra skills that you should be learning? Are you in the right type of job position that fits with your skill set and interests?  Was it the right type of company? How did you get along with your boss?

You get the idea.  There could be many different reasons and some of them will be out of your control.  However, I believe you lose an opportunity to improve yourself if you don’t take a moment and reflect on the situation leading up to your current job search.

Too often we will focus on the failure and the emotions that go along with this.  The statement, There is no failure, only feedback, gives each of us permission to get our emotional house in order, regain a positive mindset and make this part of life’s journey of continual self-improvement.

"Your ability to learn and grow and maximize your potential is directly correlated to your ability to embrace failure."

- Jim Murphy 

We should also apply this maxim to the actual job search itself.  The pursuit of the new job has similarities to other competitive events. Often there will be many applicants, but only one or two will get a job offer. If you don’t get the interview or don’t get the job offer bring this quote back to the forefront.  You didn’t fail, you got some feedback that can help you grow and in the next opportunity.  Focus on the journey and your continual self-improvement versus the singular event.

• Did you get any feedback from the company at all? 

• What questions did you struggle with during the interview? 

• Were you able to network with some people at the company before, during or after the process?

• What seemed to work well and can be implemented in future applications?

• Did you follow up?

Walk back through the process, not to demoralize yourself, but with a focus on auditing the process and evaluating opportunities for future improvement. This is an opportunity to make yourself better and not to turn negative.

There are a few other key ideas that have some relevance to the Job Search that I may share in the future or you can buy the book and dig through it yourself.