For a very long time, I always thought of failure as something I would want to avoid at all costs. Anything I would attempt to do, I would do with a 100% commitment and the notion that I will never give up until I get the job done. As a person who always views the world as a glass half full many times, my judgement would be clouded with this perception and rather than accepting that it is not working and change course or give up; my ego would keep me pursuing until eventually there was no other choice.
Whether its failure on a personal level or in a business sense, failure is a very long and painful process. I have had many, which have stripped me down to my very core. Many sleepless nights, thinking how I would not give up and what I needed to do to make things work. The internal banter with oneself on not giving up, The ego fueling the notion of all we’ve heard before, don’t give up, keep going, people quit just before they make it.
Well, that’s a whole lot of jibberish, because now I have learnt that smart leaders and entrepreneurs know when to give up. It was Einstein himself who said,
” Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.”
Failure made me realise that if something is not working, don’t waste any more time on it just because you don’t want to be labelled a failure, be strong, quit the project, reflect why it isn’t working, and start again with something new.
These are the biggest three lessons I have learnt.
1. The biggest amount of growth happens when you fail.
Failure allows us to reflect and work out where we went wrong. It provides an opportunity for us to explore alternative ideas and strategies and create a new vision for our future. It strengthens us with knowledge and experiences that transform our model of perception and reality, redefining our ideologies. It initiates growth and new opportunities.
Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple only to start from scratch one year later creating NeXT that was eventually acquired by Apple ten years later. The following year he became CEO of Apple and drove the company to the success that we all know of today. Jobs put it colloquially when presenting a speech to Stanford University students when he said,
‘I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter into one of the most creative periods of my life.”
2. A deeper sense of one’s self.
The pain of failure is more to do with the fear of failure rather than failure itself. Suffering causes us to reflect deeply, questioning our reason for being and our sense of purpose. It shatters your ego and forces you to redefine your values. When I was at my lowest, I asked myself, those long life questions, who am I, why am I doing this, how can I become a better person, what is my contribution? I became more in tune with my emotions, gratitude, love, kindness, giving, discovering that my values changed and shifted from whats in it for me to how can I make the most significant amount of impact to create a better world for the planet and the people I love.
3.Breeds persistence and resilience
Once you get over the suffering stage, failure breeds persistence and resilience inspiring you to redefine your vision and goals.
Walt Disney failed many times before he hit gold with Disney Studios, James Dyson spent fifteen years creating over five thousand prototypes before creating the Dyson Vacuum. What these visionaries had in common is that they never lost sight of their vision and that with every failure, came an iteration that drew them closer to their end goal. They maintained their focus and built a mindset that taught them that resilience and vision would outperform any negative voice. Every time they failed they revisited their goals and redefined their vision.
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 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.” — Michael Jordan
The education system and society objectify this notion of failure and teach us that failure is a subset of standards not acceptable in society. The system is presenting these ideas of reality that evolve into the stories we recite to ourselves that in essence develops into our ego. We should be promoting and fostering an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship rather than building a generation of complacency and mediocracy.
I believe that it is Ok to fail, as it was Confucius who said,
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but rising everytime we fall.
Failure used to scare the hell out of me, but now I say to the fear “bring it on, I’m ready for anything!”
Personal growth stems from failed experiences and is something you will never learn in a book, or can never learn from another, it is what the ancient Greeks referred to as wisdom, and it is something that I now advocate. Try again, fail again, repeat.
Failure is what leaders and entrepreneurs of our world understand.
Wisdom is how leaders and entrepreneurs can change our world.
Are you scared of failure?
