The Other F Word

Flop, fiasco, misstep, bomb, washout, botch, bungle, wreck, lemon, loser.

FAILURE!

What does failure mean to you?

The dictionary says failure is a noun. It can be used to mean a lack of success and that’s what this is about.

Or it can be used to describe a person, but that’s the definition that needs to be eliminated from our thinking.

But what is failure, really?

In the next few minutes, I’m going to try to give you an entirely new way of looking and understanding this F word.

I want you to experience the exhilaration of failure. I want you to learn the value of failure.

It really isn’t your fault if you have this distorted idea of failure. After all, when we watch a blockbuster movie, read a bestselling book, listen to an outstanding musical performance, or watch an Olympic athlete perform, we only see the finished product.

What’s hidden are the long hours of practice, rewrites, falls, injuries, and retakes. We don’t experience the fails unless someone makes a funny video. And that’s a kind of disservice. The editing process is what contributes to the distorted view we have of failure.

Approach every new thing you want to do as learning a skill. Because it really is. You are learning a new skill.

In the process, you will make mistakes. When you make a mistake, don’t call it a mistake. Call it feedback. It is new information you can use to adjust your direction. It is information that allows you to change course if necessary.

Remember the other part of the definition? Calling yourself or someone else a failure.

Never forget. If you are breathing you can’t be a failure. You can be a quitter. That’s an entirely different problem.

If you are paying attention, each time you experience a failure, you end up smarter. Your experiment failed. You now know more than when you started. That’s a win for you.

So the story is told that Thomas Edison, when working on the light bulb, tried 10,000 different materials for the filament. When someone asked him why he didn’t quit after so many failures, he told them he didn’t fail. He said he learned about 10,000 things that didn’t work.

So be more like Edison. Fail more often and fail at a faster rate. Fail more than your competition. Never forget, as every successful salesperson knows, each failure puts you closer to success. And you can only truly call yourself a failure if you stop trying.

Be a failure expert, but don’t be a quitter.