Is failing is a good thing?

History tells us that it took Thomas Edison several (OK 1,000+) tries before he developed a successful prototype of the light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail a thousand times, Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

A different perspective, right?

We all try to avoid failure. Failing has such bad connotation. We judge ourselves so harshly when we fail.

But, there are many examples throughout history of those who failed, picked themselves up, rolled their sleeves, and tried again: Sigmund Freud, Lucille Ball, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, NASA, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, to name but a few.

Failure, as Einstein said, is just “success in progress”; and sometimes in failure, we find that crucial ingredient, the secret sauce, for success. We learn from that experience (growth mindset anyone?). Failure encourages us to hone our skills and forces us to research and collaborate. It pushes us to think and act differently, to ask why. And because of failure, we come back harder, better, faster, stronger (thank you Daft Punk and Kanye West).

Ta da … failure can nurture and stimulate innovation! And that’s the goal, right? Innovation and that other elusive word - disruption.

Innovation and disruption do not happen overnight. They do involve taking (the right) risks. They may be mired in failure. And many leadership and management teams find it difficult to accept failure - because it goes against every grain in our bodies and everything we have ever been taught.

Failure has such a bad rap.

But if we pivot our mindset, and accept that innovation requires iteration and repetition - failure then is no longer viewed as, well, failure! It becomes a means to an end; an end that requires a lot of work - actually hard work, sweaty work, repetitive work, burning the midnight oil kind of work. Innovation takes guts, grit (there’s that word again) and perseverance. As Nic Haralambous said, we have to "Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat."

So don’t be afraid to fail. Seriously. Yes, to succeed IS hard work. Yes, it IS exasperating and sometimes can be debilitating. But it is also SO exhilarating - especially when you finally have that breakthrough, that a-ha! moment. Embrace failure for the catalyst is can be and the opportunities it presents. After all, YOU may be the one to finally figure out the whole "flying car" thing a-la-Jetsons. P.S. You only have another 44 years to figure THAT out. Go!