Failure Stories

We all love to hear success stories. They energize us. They inspire us.

We place ourselves in the shoes of the main character, sympathize with their struggles, and become excited as they (we) overcome plot conflicts to realize a happy (or at least happier) ending. However, what is inspiring about a success story is not always the ending - or even the success. The greatest success stories are really about the journey and the things our characters (we) learn about themselves along the way.

The best success stories are often really failure stories.

In 1977 ROCKY won the Oscar for Best Picture. We've all seen it (right?). You remember when he used slabs of beef in a meat locker as punching bags? How about him yelling his wife's name at the end of the fight? (You just did it, didn't you? "Yo, Adrian!") What you might not remember though, and what is the genius of the movie, is that, in the end, Rocky loses the fight to Apollo Creed.

Wait a minute. Rocky loses? Yes. Rocky loses. While his story ends in failure, Rocky is celebrated as one of the great success cinematic stories of all time.

I just finished Chris Gethard's book, Lose Well. Gethard is a comedian. His one-man show, Career Suicide, is one of the best hours of television I have ever watched. I listen to his podcast, Beautiful Anonymous, every week. I am an admirer of Chris Gethard and love what he has to say about failure in his book:

The most underestimated source of power is losing...The key to getting ahead its losing, painfully, over and over again.

Every loss is a lesson. if you can adjust your mentality, where you no longer fear losing but start to embrace it, you will be a battle-scarred, weathered, iron clad machine ready to handle success when it comes.

Losing makes our muscles strong.

Winning is your goal, or losing is your goal. You never want to land in that sad middle ground where you haven't failed. Where you did nothing to embarrass yourself, but didn't do anything to distinguish yourself either. That's the difference between winning and playing not to lose.

Here is the truth. Failure is NOT a punishment reserved for those who miss their mark or lose their way while chasing a dream, not creative enough while solving a problem, or not persistent enough when achieving goals.

Failure is an opportunity.

Failure is a friend.

Failure is a teacher.

Failure is the most interesting part of any success story.

So, get out there and fail! Try something BIG! Try something new. Develop a new skill. Take a class. Find a new job. Use the classic underdog/hero archetype to write the script for Rocky XVII.

Fail.

Learn.

Get up.

Try again.