I failed… and that’s OK
While scrolling down my LinkedIn news feed today, I came across an inspiring quote by Jack Ma, the successful Chinese businessman who founded the well-known e-commerce company Alibaba. The quote was saying:
“I failed a key primary school test 2 times, I failed the middle school test 3 times, I failed the college entrance exam 2 times and when I graduated, I was rejected for most jobs I applied for out of college (…) I applied for Harvard ten times, got rejected ten times…”
Seeing the hundreds of likes and shares this post generated, you can tell people approve and are inspired by this kind of stories.
But then I asked myself, do these people really embrace their own failures? Do they “allow” themselves/their families and friends to fail? Hum, I’m not so sure.
I’ve seen a lot of posts and inspirational quotes like this one. We all know the famous failure stories of Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey or Albert Einstein. They are the modern tales (and internet meme) more and more people live by. But in reality, how do we, as a society, see failure?
To be honest, I think we are hypocrites. Let me explain why.
In this era of entrepreneurship and startup revolution, yes some people do take risks. Some people dare to shake the status quo, go out of their comfort zone and try something new.
However, we don’t get to see their whole story. We get to know their names only when they succeed. We get the story, only when there’s a happy ending. For those who struggle climbing the hill or don’t ever get to reach the top, we don’t share their names. You’ll probably never hear about them. Why?
Because, our society celebrates and embraces failure… only when the person has reached success.
Then we look back and we say “Look how many times he tried, he never gave up. See how successful he is now! Kid, always pursue your dreams, never give up (tap on the shoulder)”. Easier said than done.
I’m a young professional, still learning and forging my experience. But no matter where I worked (multinationals and startups) I’ve never seen my companies openly sharing “worst practices” or taking time to assess a failed project and see what lessons we could draw from it. Most of the time, managers would brush away “failures”, they would rephrase and embellish a presentation to show a better side of the story. I saw people closing their eyes on huge fails, and never talking about it.
But why, why do we do that? Is it because we are afraid of getting fired? Is it because we don’t want to be judged by our peers? If these are some of the reasons, then it speaks a lot about the culture we live in.
Our society (workplace, family, friends and even ourselves) puts too much pressure on people.
You have to go to that great school, land that perfect job, get married, buy the perfect house etc. Don’t get me wrong, it is good to desire what’s best out there and strive to obtain it.
But we tend to forget that as human beings, we are not infallible. We are not always admitted to that great school, we don’t always land that job we think is perfect for us. Our life path is filled with failures. And it’s OK, because that’s how we learn.
We are human beings, we evolve and we are perfectible. This is our beauty right. At least that’s what Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, and I agree with him! Let me repeat, we all fail and that’s OK. The simple truth is that no great success was ever achieved without failure.
So, let’s be open about it, talk about it and share our failures. Let’s stop liking inspirational quotes and instead own our failures in real life even if it hurts. Together, if we sincerely embrace our failures and share them openly without being afraid of what other people would think or say, I’m sure we can accomplish even greater things.
Instead of perceiving failure as the end, let’s perceive it as hurdles we must cross in the path of our journey.
I’ll finish this post with a powerful quote (I had to) that really speaks to my soul.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” — Denis Waitley
