Failure: The Catalyst for Success

Article by Ed Brodow, author of Beating the Success Trap

As we revere success, so do we abhor failure. In Western culture, failure is regarded as the direct opposite of success. People who fail at anything, especially work-related activities, can expect a punishing assault on their self-esteem. In reality, each of us must face this challenge, for who is fortunate enough to avoid rubbing elbows with failure? How you deal with it will determine whether or not you feel good about yourself. Here is a new perspective on failure that will help you to meet the challenge.

In truth, failure is an integral part of success because it contributes to the learning process. You cannot improve your knowledge, refine your expertise, bolster your competence, or perfect your technique without failing and learning from the experience. Life itself can be looked at as a series of large and small failures occasionally punctuated by success. If life required you to wait until you were perfect you would never get out of bed. Life is, in fact, a process of learning through our mistakes, not in spite of them. It is a dynamic process in which you cannot get it right until you get it wrong first. So in spite of its usual negative connotation, failure is actually the catalyst for success.

Look at any inventor, any pioneer, and you will see that they tried and failed and tried and failed until they finally figured out what they were doing. A classic example is the famous inventor Thomas A. Edison. Edison tried over a thousand materials until he found the one that would make a filament for his light bulb that would not fizzle and burn in seconds. We do not remember Edison as a failure for the 999 substances that were a miss. We remember him for the one that was a hit.

If sports is your metaphor of choice, consider the baseball greats who have maintained batting averages over 300. That means they failed 70 percent of the time! The professional ball player who strikes out can feel sure that next time at bat he will be closer to hitting a home run. He does not obsess over the one that got away. The emphasis is on the next one.

NEXT is actually one of my favorite words. By focusing your energies on the next situation, failure can be perceived as a positive experience because it means you are now closer to success. So when you fail to achieve a desired result, yell "NEXT!" No one, including you, will remember the ones that got away. You will be recognized and compensated for your successes. If you take a positive approach, failure is not an enemy but your friend.

Hopefully you won't have to strike out 999 times before you succeed. But it is essential to recognize that persistence is one of the key qualities of people who reach their goals. They don't let their failures stop them. Instead, they use their failures to learn and improve.

Ed Brodow is a motivational speaker, negotiation expert, and author of Beating the Success Trap: Negotiating for the Life You Really Want and the Rewards You Deserve (HarperCollins, 2004, ISBN: 0-06-000883-0). For information on his keynotes and seminars, contact Ed at 831-372-7270, ed@brodow.com, and www.BeatingTheSuccessTrap.com.

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