How Failure Equals Success
The story of why all successful people fail
Let me tell you a secret.
I want you to think about all the people you look up to in life. They could be artists, musicians, athletes, motivational speakers, writers, teachers, or even the mail carrier, your therapist, librarian, you name it. All of these people have one thing in common, you know what that is?
They all fail.
The most successful people have failed countless times in their lives — for example, Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is one of the most beloved and arguably one of the best basketball players of all time. He’s also known for many things beyond his athleticism, such as his strength, positivity, and drive. But what many people don’t know is that he got cut from his high school varsity basketball team, or that he too has missed thousands of shots in his career.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” -Michael Jordan
For myself, I have messed up thousands of times in the drama club. During rehearsals, I have stumbled over lines, forgotten them entirely, missed cues, didn’t understand stage directions, and many, many more mistakes. Despite this, instead of quitting or accepting where I was, I used my failures and embarrassing moments to drive myself to become a better actor. I bought books on acting, spent more time reading the show’s script, and practiced my lines constantly and rigorously for hours on end. On or off rehearsal I was pushing myself to become better and better. All of this effort ended up lending me the lead role in my sophomore year of high school in the fall play, and the male lead for the fall play the following year as well. But one thing is certain: none of these things would have happened to me if I hadn’t failed.
How Failure Can Change Your Life
I want you to think back to your childhood for this one. Remember when you were a kid in your kitchen and you were looking at a pot boiling on the stove? Maybe it was for dinner, or maybe your parents were making some lunch. Whatever the reason was, your parents most likely told you not to touch it while it was on and to overall be careful around the stove. Being young and not knowing what the consequences were for touching something hot, you probably touched the boiling pot anyway, which was then probably followed by an “AHHHHH!”. If you think hard about it, you failed.
- Goal: Don’t touch the stove
- How you failed: You touched the stove and got burnt
However, from that day on you used that failure as a learning tool to help yourself out in the future, reminding yourself that if you touch something hot you’ll get burnt.
Now come back to the present day. Long gone are the days of being a kid and getting your fingers burnt, but now something more complex has entered your life. Your job application was rejected, your test grade came out to be a D, you got cut from the soccer team, etc. Regardless, something challenging is in your way and you must do something to overcome it. Not everyone is working a job, not everyone is an A+ student, and not everyone gets on the soccer team. But what truly separates these people from the successful ones is one thing. It’s their ability to self-reflect and learn.
Going back to my theater career, when I messed up my lines I could have done two things. Either sit and complain, but do nothing, or use my failure to see what I needed to improve and take action to improve. Choosing the latter is what separates successful people from those who are not.
Another thing that makes successful people who they are is resilience. Even if they fail at something and they don’t understand it, they know deep down that it’s the thing they love or want so desperately that they will continue to do what they are doing until they achieve their goals. I have had many haters in my life who have said many negative things about my skills and passions. I’ve heard it all, from being terrible, stupid, awkward, or just plain untalented. While I don’t believe in natural-born talent, which is a discussion for another day, I didn’t let whether or not I was initially good at something stop me from getting good at that thing in the first place.
Something many people don’t see is people’s entire stories. A lot of people, yourself included, may be discouraged when they see their favorite athlete or author, for example, be so successful and good at what they do. What they don’t see however is the countless failures and hours they put in to excel in their passion. Stephen King, one of the world’s most renowned authors, has trashed and cycled through so many ideas and rough drafts before he found one that resonated with him or one that he felt confident continuing to write. When I started acting, my first role only had three lines. I was a frog, and the only thing I said for all my three lines was “ribbit ribbit”. The next one, I also had maybe half a dozen lines if that, and was only in two scenes of the entire show. I admit, I did feel discouraged. I thought I would never be a good actor. It wasn’t until I had the drive to be better, ignore my haters, and think and take action on where I needed improvement that I became better and started getting roles with more and more lines and stage time.
I feel confident in saying that failure is the reason why I and many others succeed. Humans aren’t perfect and failure is almost always inevitable. However, by continuing to learn from your mistakes by seeing where and how you can improve and take action, only then will you truly become great.
“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