Thursday, May 26, 2011 9:33 PM
The Vancouver Canucks have advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs, vanquishing the San Jose Sharks in the process. After the game, Joe Thorton was interviewed. Here’s what he said:
Yeah, it stings knowing that we got so close to the Stanley Cup playoffs. But like our coach said to us, we need to just learn from this experience. It’s ok that we didn’t make the next round, we’ll all grow as a team and individuals.
Or how about the Pittsburgh Steelers player who, after losing the SuperBowl to Green Bay, said:
Hey, there’s a whole bunch of teams that wish they were here where we are. You don’t get to the SuperBowl too often, but just getting here is great. I’m happy with how the game went, and I know its made me a better player.
What, you didn’t hear about those quotes? Well, that’s because they didn’t happen. They’d never happen, less the person being quoted got booted off his team the next day!
We have all sorts of sayings that people have come up with to help make us feel better when things don’t go right:
“We learn from our failures.”
“Fail. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better”
This was echoed in a recent tweet from a local business conference. The speaker, a CEO of a technology company, was quoted as saying:
It’s okay to fail – it’s how we learn.
But that’s wrong! That’s what’s so wrong with our world today! We’re afraid to hold people up to standards, to stand up against mediocrity and apathy, and instead wrap it in a pretty bow and sell it as self help.
It’s NOT OK to Fail
It’s *never* ok to fail. As parents, are we ok with our children failing at school? We should be because they’re learning, right? Should we be ok if we fail at our jobs? It’s ok because the more we fail, the more we learn and get better (although then why do we keep on failing?).
Let me be clear on something: I absolutely agree that we learn from our mistakes, that the failures we do experience in our lives teach us a great deal. But this idea that its just ok to fail, that regardless of winning or losing there’s always some silver lining, is wrong. And its typically preached by people who don’t succeed very often.
Failure Should Be A Possible Outcome, Not An Option
The difference between an outcome and an option is control: I can control whether I include failure as an option, I have to accept that failure may be an undesirable outcome.
Having failure as an option asks “What if?” whereas not having it as an option states “When we…”. It’s confidence, its moxie, its the firm belief, focus, and will to see something through to the end, and not just limp over the finish line but run full speed with arms raised!
I suggest a new mantra, one that doesn’t lead us down the path of self-analysis at the hands of defeat, but one that pushes us to be better, bolder, stronger, and more successful:
Success is imperative, but if you fail then learn from it and make sure it never happens again.
And if anyone tells you its ok to fail, make sure to ask them when the last time they succeeded at something was.