To achieve the greatest success, you have to embrace the prospect of failure.
The sweetest victory is the one that’s most difficult. The one that
requires you to reach down deep inside, to fight with everything you’ve
got, to be willing to leave everything out there on the
battlefield—without knowing, until that do-or-die moment, if your heroic
effort will be enough. Society doesn’t reward defeat, and you won’t
find many failures documented in history books.
The exceptions are those failures that become
steppingstones to later success . Such is the case with Thomas Edison,
whose most memorable invention was the light bulb, which purportedly
took him 1,000 tries before he developed a successful prototype. “How
did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” a reporter asked. “I didn’t fail 1,000
times,” Edison responded. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000
steps.”
Unlike Edison, many of us avoid the prospect of failure. In fact, we’re
so focused on not failing that we don’t aim for success, settling
instead for a life of mediocrity. When we do make missteps, we gloss
over them, selectively editing out the miscalculations or mistakes in
our life’s résumé. “Failure is not an option,” NASA flight controller
Jerry C. Bostick reportedly stated during the mission to bring the
damaged Apollo 13 back to Earth, and that phrase has been etched into
the collective memory ever since. To many in our success-driven society,
failure isn’t just considered a non-option—it’s deemed a deficiency,
says Kathryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of
Error . “Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might
well top the list,” Schulz says. “It is our meta-mistake: We are wrong
about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual
inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition.”
Failure Is Life’s Greatest Teacher
When we take a closer look at the great thinkers throughout history, a
willingness to take on failure isn’t a new or extraordinary thought at
all. From the likes of Augustine, Darwin and Freud to the business
mavericks and sports legends of today, failure is as powerful a tool as
any in reaching great success. “Failure and defeat are life’s greatest
teachers [but] sadly, most people, and particularly conservative
corporate cultures, don’t want to go there,” says Ralph Heath, managing
partner of Synergy Leadership Group and author of Celebrating Failure:
The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big . “Instead
they choose to play it safe, to fly below the radar, repeating the same
safe choices over and over again. They operate under the belief that if
they make no waves, they attract no attention; no one will yell at them
for failing because they generally never attempt anything great at which
they could possibly fail (or succeed).”
However, in today’s post-recession economy, some employers are no longer
shying away from failure—they’re embracing it. According to a recent
article in BusinessWeek, many companies are deliberately seeking out
those with track records reflecting both failure and success, believing
that those who have been in the trenches, survived battle and come out
on the other side have irreplaceable experience and perseverance.
“The quickest road to success is to possess an attitude toward failure of ‘no fear.’ ”
They’re veterans of failure. The prevailing school of thought in
progressive companies—such as Intuit, General Electric, Corning and
Virgin Atlantic—is that great success depends on great risk , and
failure is simply a common byproduct. Executives of such organizations
don’t mourn their mistakes but instead parlay them into future gains.
“The quickest road to success is to possess an attitude toward failure
of ‘no fear,’ ” says Heath. “To do their work well, to be successful and
to keep their companies competitive, leaders and workers on the front
lines need to stick their necks out a mile every day.
They have to deliver risky, edgy, breakthrough ideas, plans,
presentations, advice, technology, products, leadership, bills and more.
And they have to deliver all this fearlessly—without any fear
whatsoever of failure, rejection or punishment.”
Reaching Your Potential
The same holds true for personal quests, whether in overcoming some
specific challenge or reaching your full potential in all aspects of
life. To achieve your personal best, to reach unparalleled heights, to
make the impossible possible, you can’t fear failure, you must think
big, and you have to push yourself . When we think of people with this
mindset, we imagine the daredevils, the pioneers, the inventors, the
explorers: They embrace failure as a necessary step to unprecedented
success. But you don’t have to walk a tightrope, climb Mount Everest or
cure polio to employ this mindset in your own life.
When the rewards of success are great, embracing possible failure is key
to taking on a variety of challenges, whether you’re reinventing
yourself by starting a new business or allowing yourself to trust
another person to build a deeper relationship. “To achieve any worthy
goal, you must take risks,” says writer and speaker John C. Maxwell. In
his book Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for
Success , he points to the example of legendary aviator Amelia Earhart,
who set several records and achieved many firsts in her lifetime,
including being the first female pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic
Ocean.
Although her final flight proved fateful, Maxwell believes she knew the
risk—and that the potential reward was worth it. “[Earhart’s] advice
when it came to risk was simple and direct: ‘Decide whether or not the
goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.’ ” Of course,
the risks you take should be calculated; you shouldn’t fly blindly into
the night and simply hope for the best. Achieving the goal or at least
waging a heroic effort requires preparation, practice and some awareness
of your skills and talents.
Easing Into a Fearless Mindset
“One of the biggest secrets to success is operating inside your strength zone but outside of your comfort zone.”
“ One of the biggest secrets to success is operating inside your
strength zone but outside of your comfort zone,” Heath says. Although
you might fail incredibly, you might succeed incredibly—and that’s why
incredible risk and courage are requisite. Either way, you’ll learn more
than ever about your strengths, talents and resolve, and you’ll
strengthen your will for the next challenge. If this sounds like
dangerous territory, it can be. But there are ways to ease into this
fearless mindset.
