When I taught at Microsoft years ago, I remember being surprised to hear again and again from the group I was teaching that they were being encouraged to fail. Not purposely, but to take chances, take risks, and realize failure was a necessary step toward success.
Adam Grant, author of Think Again, talks about celebrating failure, because it means you’re just that much closer to your goal.
And a boss I had once reminded me to fail better, to learn what wasn’t working but to use a feather, not a hammer, to remind myself of what I’d learned and then move on.
Yet with all that sage advice, no one likes to make a mistake, let alone fail at anything. It crushes our ego, damages our self esteem and is embarrassing. So how, like all inventors who see failure as a natural evolution toward understanding, do we allow ourselves grace when things don’t work out?
If we can pat ourselves on the back for being willing to try, analyze what we learned that is valuable for the future, and then realize that even though it was enormous to us, it’s often not even noticeable to others, then we’re on our way to turning “failure” into “a learning process that leads to success.”
In thinking about which of my multitude of failures to use as an example here, I decided to share one that, in retrospect, was hilarious, but NOT AT THE TIME. I was married to the owner of the world’s largest magic shop for a while, and he was famous for a specific illusion. He was invited by a prestigious group of Italian magicians to perform this illusion at an Italian convention, all expenses paid. He wanted to bring his long-time assistant but I told him of course I could learn how to do what he needed (I was young and wanted a trip to Italy and didn’t analyze what the consequences might be if I couldn’t learn to do what needed to be done). So, he acquiesced and off we went, without much practice. He told me over practice was not good, however I should have told him not enough practice was a recipe for disaster. Which is what happened. In this huge auditorium with the best magicians in Italy watching, I couldn’t manage to get into his illusion properly and squirmed around while he pretended things were working.
Don’t know how long it was before he spoke to me again, and it was highly embarrassing, but my failure was a reminder how ego can get in the way and taught me lots of other good lessons in humility.
I’m sure your failures aren’t as visible or embarrassing as mine, but all failure are lessons that accelerate our growth. May you fail better and quicker and, instead of dwelling, just learn and move on!
