The second part of this series aims to pull us back to leveraging failure towards success. We first explored failure as a tool for learning, then considered how our fight or flight reflexes play into adapting our mindset around failure. Finishing off Why I Love Failure: Part I, the Build, Measure, Learn loop was introduced. Next, let’s dive into how failure should become a springboard into our future ambitions.
Failure is a Springboard to Success
We all love an underdog, don’t we? It is the classic American idealistic story where we hear of someone who came from nothing to amazing success that drives us to read books and watch movies on these icons. Some of the most successful individuals in human history, particularly modern history, failed many times before eventually coming to success. In “Batman Begins” the beloved butler of Bruce Wayne, also known as Batman, said, “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
Here are some inspiring, less common known examples of entrepreneurs who failed and rose again to success:
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- For those of us that love fried chicken, the famous Colonel Sanders wasn’t successful with franchising his Kentucky Fried Chicken concept until he was in his 60s, where he was allegedly turned down over one thousand times.
- J.K. Rowling, the famous billionaire author of multiple fictional novels including the “Harry Potter” series, describes her failures: “You might never fail on the scale I did, but it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” She pursued more than a dozen publishers for the first “Harry Potter” manuscript before finally landing one.
- Arianna Huffington, the creator of the Huffington Post, wanted to change digital publishing by flipping the model and decentralizing authors across the U.S. She was rejected three dozen times by publishers. She almost failed after the launch, before finally overcoming content and technical challenges.
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What is it about failure that makes for a great story? Many successful people are able to spin those failures into artful narratives with epic plots of heroism, depths of misery and grandiose visions of a better world. These stories engage us emotionally and inspire us to be more, to be better versions of ourselves, and to pursue passions we have put off for years.
The key takeaway here is that failure, when approached from the proper mindset and within a framework of accepting failure’s role in learning, we can stop and reevaluate where we are and where we are going. Each of the aforementioned stories are famous names that overcame multiple failures. The reality is that most of us will never reach that level of success. I feel certain that is not where my path leads, but I do understand and embrace micro-failure each and every day. When I work with an entrepreneur, I encourage him or her to take the next step, stop overthinking, and explore where the next step leads them once they are there. Change happens with big vision, but as an incremental process. Failure is what happens on the journey towards success that creates knowledge, understanding, and strength as a person and an organization.
Don’t let failure get in the way of you pursuing your next great idea, your personal passion or simply solving challenges in your office. Use the opportunity to fail as an opportunity to learn. Set boundaries around failure in order to make sure you don’t fail too hard. Remember to tell the story of your failure when you share the narrative around your success.
Jeremy Vickers, Ph.D., serves as Associate Vice President of External Affairs at Baylor University where he leads institutional events, community relations, and external affairs. He is passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship and channels that passion to serve organizations where he can support both growth and change. Jeremy lives in Waco, TX with his wife Jackie and four children.