Celebrating Failure

I’ve never understood why failure is condemned and success is celebrated. The reality is that success is what you define it to be, not what others think it is.

Imagine you just made a meal for your friends, and the main dish is an absolute failure. It’s too spicy, not spicy enough, not hot enough, overdone/underdone. Would you say, “That’s It! I’m done cooking!” and never walk into your kitchen again?

One thing we know for certain about working with entrepreneurs is that they don’t quit — they just start over with a bit more caution, time, or understanding of what actually needs to happen.

Celebrating a failure is particularly critical for startups. You learn, adjust, and launch again.

Consider, while you launch your business, that your product, service, or pricing might not be what the customers wanted. They might want different packaging, they might be willing to pay more than you think. The truth of what might cause your business to fail is not a reason to quit. Although you might realize it’s a good time to stop what you are doing, our belief is to learn from what mistakes you made on the first, second, third, or fourth try, and keep moving forward with your ideas as they are adjusted.

I say this because in my experience, entrepreneurship is a practice just like medicine. No one knows the answer and you might have the same symptoms but yet not have the same disease as someone else.

You can only learn and hope that your probability of nailing it the next time is better, but you could never really know that you could get it 100%.

Keep practicing and celebrate the times you fail! Celebrate the mistakes you make, the learning, and document it so you remember the next time. Anything you learn could keep you aware of what could go wrong.

Remember Albert Einstein’s famous quotes:

Failure is success in progress.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What have you done in the past to celebrate failure?
2. What does success means to you?
3. What other tools have you used to keep moving forward?

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Faris Alami is Founder and CEO of International Strategic Management, Inc. (ISM). He works internationally, presenting Exploring Entrepreneurship Workshops and other entrepreneurial ecosystem?—?related ventures.