Failure, Feedback, and Success

I hate failing. Every sane person should hate it. Failing a test, failing to win that basketball match, failing to make the sushi for dinner look aesthetically pleasant.

With the self-improvement movement lately, I started hearing more about failure being a good thing?

How can it be a good thing when you feel like shit?

Are the self-help gurus lying?

Well, not exactly. Failure is not the problem. However, your mindset surrounding failure, is.

When you start navigating through the narratives of a failure and a success, you start noticing it’s not all black and white.

Failure and success are not on the opposites of the spectrum, but rather, they share a symbiotic relationship where one feeds the other.

You can look at a failure as a foundational step towards success. There is a high probability you won’t ever be successful without ever failing.

There’s even a correlation: The more failures equals greater chance of success.

Take, for instance, the learning curve on riding a bike. Initially, you might find yourself repeatedly tipping off balance and crashing. After several falls, particularly if they're all to the same side, the realisation dawns that something must change.

"Why do I keep falling to the right? Perhaps I'm not balancing correctly." With this insight, you adjust, attempting to lean a bit more to the left, only to find yourself falling over to this new side.

"Ah, maybe that was too much adjustment." It's a process of trial, error, and recalibration.

This cycle of falling, reassessing, and trying again is the essence of learning from failure.

Success isn't about the frequency of failure; it's about the response to and the lessons learned from each fall.

Creating an environment where failures, and learning from failure, is looked upon as a positive change is essential for success.

SpaceX, for instance, celebrated when their rocket soared kilometres high before exploding - a clear embrace of a ‘successful failure’ as progress.

A common way to optimise failure is to fail fast.

Adopting a fail fast philosophy means rapidly testing ideas, such as a business concept, to minimise time and resource costs.

Consider launching a new software. Is spending 2 years developing a perfect product, without knowing there’s a demand for the given product optimal?

Or is it better to build a scrappy version of a Minimum Viable Product(MVP) in 3 weeks, getting it in front 5 test users to find out they don’t want it.

This approach could result in a strategic pivot after just a few weeks, finding users who appreciate the core product. This might lay groundwork for achieving your product-market fit.

So, the next time you’re contemplating stepping out of your comfort zone - be it a student role, a challenging task from your boss, or starting a new venture - embrace the likelihood of failure.

You are likely to fail. It’s okay. Let yourself fail. Embrace the failure as a learning experience. Learn from the failure and never make the same mistake again.

To leave you on a positive note:

Few successes are much more impactful than dozens of failures. Amazon (AWS, Kindle, hardly outweigh all the failures), VCs also work on this principle that 5% of businesses they invest in are going to cover the 95% of losses.

Fail often. Fail fast. Get feedback. Learn from it. Repeat. Eventually, you will succeed.

I’d love to hear about your failures. If you message me your failure, I’ll message you mine.

Oliver.