It is a dirty word, and we seek to avoid it. JFK famously said, “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” However, failure is often better than the alternative, inevitable, hastily decided, and the fertilizer of success.
The Alternative?
An evil man died and found himself in a splendid casino with an open bar and beautiful women who would not say no to him, and every time he gambled, he won. He enjoyed it for a while and then complained to the concierge that he was frustrated that heaven was all risk-free fun. He smirked and replied, “What makes you think you are in heaven?” That was Rod Serling’s cue to mention the infinite misery of never failing for eternity in the Twilight Zone.
My dad said he scored 100 on every school test, and my grandmother confirmed his story. My admiration for my dad was immense, and I was envious as I fell well short of that mark. Much later, I realized his perfect scores were a tragedy.
How much more could he have learned if exposed to more information than he could absorb? He would not have grasped 100%, but 90% of more would have undoubtedly exceeded 100% of less. Unless we act to the point of failure, we will not reach our capacity.
Inevitable
We must get over ourselves. If we are going to do anything new and challenging, we should expect numerous unsuccessful efforts on the road to accomplishment.
Albert Einstein would have never found the right filament for the light bulb unless he was willing to be wrong thousands of times. Home run sluggers accept strikeouts as a consequence of swinging for the fences. The Great Bambino, Babe Ruth, was the home run and strikeout king.
Hastily Decided?
You might prematurely believe you have arrived at failure.
Governor Bill Clinton delivered one of the worst speeches ever at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Pundits declared the performance ended his political career. Four years later, he joked about that infamous speech while accepting his party’s presidential nomination. His first speech was dreadfully unsuccessful, but he did not fail in his political ambition.
If victory always went to the winners of the first battles, the Allies would have lost the war. History wrote the final chapter long after the failed defenses of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.
Fertilizer of Success?
The self-help gurus now boldly proclaim we should “fail fast” and “course correct.” I am not so infatuated with rushing into failure, but we must be willing to accept and learn to use it.
You do not learn how to do it right by doing it wrong. No, you need to learn good technique. However, you cannot master good technique unless you are willing to endure using poor technique. My longtime readers know I had to write (and they had to read) a lot of cringe-worthy prose to get where I am today.
One of the more prolific “missers” of all time attributes his success to his failures. Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Fortunately, we can redeem our failures since they provoke more learning than our successes.
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Perhaps we should narrow the definition of failure from its all-or-nothing connotation to “not achieving the presumed objective.” This definition recognizes collateral benefits such as displaying the courage to act, the learning obtained, realizing failure may be a prerequisite to success, and providing the motivation to continue.
Failure is final when we do not attempt what we want, do not learn from it, or when we stop acting (there may be excellent reasons to quit, but that is a subject for another day).
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If failure is so virtuous and its benefits so obvious, why have we not pursued it? Let us procrastinate until next week…