The Freedom to Fail
Failure comes in lots of different flavors, with dozens of different permutations. It often hurts and diverts us from the path we thought we were on, and it usually brings with it the shame of somehow acting in the wrong. But we all experience failure. It’s one of the things that unites us in a common experience. And the fact that failure is so very common should be comforting – it means that when you fail, you aren’t necessarily destroyed by the experience. Like a forest fire, failure can clear the way for new life. A new path forward.
Suzanne Paulinski, CEO at the Rockstar Advocate, has experienced her share of setbacks. The record label she and her partner had built from the ground up had to be shelved when Paulinski’s business partner – someone she’d thought of as a sister – abruptly decided that she wanted to do something else. Paulinski struggled with the separation – “not because she left but because I felt like I’d failed as a business partner.” She questioned her own fitness as a business partner and a friend before arriving at the conclusion that her ex-partner simply had her own path follow; it didn’t mean Paulinski was any less qualified or that their partnership had been any less successful. It did mean that she suddenly had an opportunity to re-evaluate her own career path. Was running a record label truly what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing? Time away and renewed focus lead quickly to the creation of The Rockstar Advocate, her own company, meaning Paulinski was beholden to no one. “As scary as it was, it was very liberating,” Paulinski says. “Now I can look back and say, ‘Wow, she’s remained supportive, and I remained supportive of her,’ and I finally found something that I really, truly, love to do.”
Not all failures are as life-changing. Douglas Hutchings, the CEO of Picasolar, believes failure to be a critical step towards achieving success. “I think you want to fail and find out what doesn’t work as quickly as possible,” he says. Failure is an integral part of making the effort and trying to support your idea. “You’re never going to know until you try,” he says, “I’ve learned that even if you do fail at something, in general, people don’t hold it against you. They’re more excited that you tried something and you learned something.” When asked how when to listen to “experts and mentors” and when to listen to yourself, Russell Simmons offered the following advice to Susan Paulinski: “Listen. Do what you think is right, and if it’s wrong, then tomorrow you wake up and try something else. And if that’s wrong, you wake up the next day and you try something else.”
The key has always been learning from your mistakes. Sean Keith, of the law offices of Keith, Miller, Butler, Schneider, and Pawlik, advocates for a period of self-evaluation after every set-back. Understanding exactly what went wrong – whether it was an unavoidable circumstance or the product of simply not knowing enough about what you’re trying to do – as well as what was done well is absolutely worth the hard conversation. You cannot improve unless you confront the truth head-on.
Fear of failure will keep you from pursuing your dreams, and it shouldn’t. The lessons you learn from failing are inherently valuable, especially to your next project. Scott Beebe, a business coach and consultant, firmly believes that failure is simply part of product development. There is no finished product that has not gone through draft after draft, either in terms of design, manufacturing, or how it is positioned in the market. We should remember, as we scroll through the internet’s inexhaustible array of perfectly arranged bento-boxes and tutorials, that no one gets it right the first time. Let’s follow the admonition of Sean Wittenberg, President & Founder of Safe Catch: “Fail fast. Then put abundant resources on the things that are working.”