Why I worry about failure

I worry about failure all the time. However, not in the way you expect.  don’t worry about failure itself, because failure is a guarantee in business. If you try new things, they will often not work.

No. I don’t worry about that.

I worry that I will try something and it will fail, and then people will have a reason to say,

“See, told you it doesn’t work.”

I worry that you are going to listen to them, and lose out on valuable information because you saw me fail once or twice or a thousand times.

People often think that one fail means systemic failure, but a good business builds failure into their DNA. They assume some projects will fail, and work to mitigate those failures as much as possible.

If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.

However, the general public sees one failure and associates it with the person being a failure.

I’m not sure why it happens, but I have a theory.

My theory is that most people are scared to try things. When people succeed it makes them feel like they should have tried a thing, too. The more successful a person is, the more it invalidates their choice to play it safe.

When that person fails, though, it validates people playing it safe and never trying anything new.

Another’s failure allows you to play it safe.

Because the thing is, we are all bound to fail. Many of us will fail hard more often then we will succeed.

However, having failure does not make a person a failure. It does not invalidate their journey. Some people go on a long winning streak, but that doesn’t mean failure isn’t lurking right around the bend.