Overcoming failures through Stoic principles

By: Puneet Agarwal

Failure is the most common phenomenon associated with most of our lives where we all have experienced it several times. It may have come across in the form of the rejection for the job application that you always wanted, refusal from the person whom you fell in love with, unable to convince the investors of your brilliant idea that you believed can change the world, or not making into the final list of the candidates to qualify for the competitive exams – leading to crushing of your dreams!

These failures have happened in our past and are most likely to happen again in the future too. While we cannot control in most cases for them to not occur but can prepare ourselves on how to react when such incidents happen in our lives and not be overwhelmed by the failures. Principles of stoic philosophies can help us to prepare ourselves for the failures that may come tomorrow because these are likely to come big or small. The most important thing to remember after the failure is that “Effort is enough!”. The best example is perhaps Belisarius, one of Rome’s highest-ranking generals, who was never given due credit for his brilliant victories, but never complained about it as he knew that he did well and that was enough.

Being in the state:

It starts by understanding that circumstances do not have any care for our feelings, and therefore, there is little argument in blaming the circumstances for our failure. Marcus Aurelius said, “You shouldn't give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don't care at all”. During the American Revolution, General Grant was repeatedly facing failures on the battlefield as he was trying to move his forces to penetrate in Southern region. He continued to stay on the front despite requests from President Lincoln to step aside and give someone else the responsibility of accomplishing this task. He refused to be dissuaded from these failures and pressures and tried to find solutions to meet this challenge- which he did eventually and became the right hand of Lincoln later. This story tells us that whatever the situation comes we should not allow these times to affect our emotional wellbeing.

It is essential during these times that we deal with the pain that comes from the failure, and do not hide these feelings, at least from ourselves. At the same time, the words of Marcus Aurelius must be remembered as he says,” Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it’s nothing to be ashamed of and that it can’t degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keeping it from acting rationally and for the common good”. By channelling our state into apatheia in whatever condition that we may experience, we will give little attention to things that don’t matter and more to which matters. During the financial crisis of 1857, Rockefeller faced an acute crisis as he was losing business badly like many others, but he remained calm and instead of pulling out from the market, waiting for the right opportunity to come.

Performing self-assessment by root-cause analysis:

Root cause analysis is a technique that is often used in industries to determine the cause of the failure of the product or service. Using a similar approach, we can determine the reasons for the failure of the dream that we were aiming to pursue. Scott Piol, a talent recruiter for one of the leading baseball companies, had kept the photo of Dave Stachelski on his desk to remind himself of the failure to recognise this young talent in the early days itself that led to the company losing the services of this extremely talented player for a significant time.

It is also critical to understand that each of us has our journey to travel and therefore, our way of measuring these should be based on the performance of our alone. This will help us to improve on the areas that are determined through the root cause analysis over the period. A good example can be using the GRIT tool assessment prepared by Angela Duckworth (https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/ ) that allows us to track our grittiness attitude over time. But if you are not a data person, then do not be afraid to, as root cause analysis may also indicate to change our behaviour to reduce the probability of failure in future. Steve Jobs upon being fired from Apple due to his uncontrollable ego, realised that the fundamental reason for the failure was this extreme ego that led to several management mistakes.

Assimilate all emotions:

A Greek term,” Katabasis”, refers to going down, i.e., the emotional state after we face the failure in our lives. It is obvious that we will feel a range of emotions that may include embarrassment, anxiety, anger, sadness, and shame, but it is also important to be wary of what we let in, as these may have a serious psychological impact on us, whether it is for the short or long term period. Frederick Douglass, the famous leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, upon facing a racial discrimination situation once said, “They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me”.

Getting into a state of guilt is perhaps the biggest impairment that we can give to ourselves, which is even worse than getting into jail. Malcolm X, when imprisoned for 10 years for theft of an expensive watch, did not allow himself to be in this state of guilt (dead time), but chose to learn himself by consuming every book of the prison library (active time). It is the choice that we all have to make after the failure, whether we chose Alive time (by utilising every moment) or Dead time (waiting and dreading). By being a little hopeful, and choosing the alive time, we can assure that one day this decision will make sense after all.

Seek help:

There is no shame in seeking help from others or from resources that you can trust to help you during these times. When we aim for the highest, it is highly possible that we may fall short of those targets. Vince Lombardi once said,” A team, like men, must be brought to its knees before it can rise again”. But by believing in ourselves and being a little hopeful, we can take the first step in this recovery process. The second step is to stop thinking about what others are perceiving about our failure, as it is not possible to control what others may think or say about us. Marcus Aurelius once said,” I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our estimation of self”.

As Harivansh Rai Bachchan a famous Hindi poet once said “yah samay bhi beet jayega”, which translates into “this time shall also pass life”. The third step is to think ahead, as life does not need to end at this stage, and something better may lie ahead in our lives. John Kennedy’s book A Confederacy of Dunces was not accepted by most publishers at the time, so out of utter disappointment, he committed suicide. Later, his mother ensured that the book is published, which got the Pulitzer prize twelve years after his death. The fourth and final step begins with re-believing in our abilities and redefining the process of our working. This approach has been commonly accepted at the centre for innovation, Silicon Valley, where many people come up with the Minimum Viable Product, that allows the innovators to assess where they went wrong with little losses, and re-iterate their methods to better meet their customer needs.

“Success comes to the lowly and the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life”- Seneca.

References:

1. The 50th Law by Rober Greene

2. Obstacle is the way, by Ryan Holiday

3. Ego is the enemy, by Ryan Holiday

4. Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

5. Seneca by Lucius Amnaeus