Stop Calling It Failure!
Last summer, I was in the Pacific Northwest for a little family reunion. One evening a few of us jumped at the chance to go waterskiing. Now, I grew up waterskiing in the deep, cold water of Washington’s famous Puget Sound and I love how black and glassy it can be at sunset. It’s the best.
Also, I’m a pretty good water skier and so were the other people on the boat - except for one, Karen, my cousin John’s girlfriend.
But we didn’t know that.
So at sunset, in view of our family watching from the hill, I skied until my arms would no longer hold (not as long as you think). Then cousin Will had a go. When he was done, Karen jumped up and said “ok my turn.”
She slapped on a soggy, cold life jacket, grabbed the slalom ski, and jumped in the water. When she put the ski on she mentioned it was a little big and then said, “Ok, now what do I do?”
“What?” Will said. “Karen, have you ever waterskied before?” A valid question considering most people learn to waterski on two, not one.
“Nope,” she said, “but I’ve always wanted to. “
“Heck yah, Karen,” we hollered clapping for her and coaching her from the boat. She gave it four or five solid tries but she kept slipping out of the ski, which just didn’t fit her. Pity.
Let’s All Be Like Karen.
Here’s what I love about this story:
I’m pretty sure Karen knew she might not stand atop the water on a single ski, but who cares? Why not give it a shot, you know, to increase her odds for the next time?
It’s irrational to expect competence at things we’ve never tried, yet we do it all the time. Many of us are conditioning the behavior by holding back on things we’d really like to try/do/build because we might “fail.”
Karen didn’t get up on that ski. Did she fail? No, of course not, Karen’s a warrior for giving it a shot. I want to approach all the new things I do with that sort of moxie.
Failure Needs New PR.
Perhaps it would help if we quit calling it “failure” and started calling it “curriculum” instead. (Thanks Brooke Castillo for that reframe.)
As it goes with waterskiing so it goes life: You can’t learn how to do it watching from the boat. You’ve got to jump in the very cold Puget Sound, strap on a too-big ski, and yell hit it - even if you drink a bunch of salt water because nobody told you to let go of the rope when you fall.
Quitting = Failure. Curriculum = Learning.
Thomas Edison is probably the most famous failure in the world, because, as the story goes, it took him 1000 tries to create a functioning light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail at something so many times, Edison replied,
"I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
Not failure, curriculum.
Edison was an early tech-bro and any of those dudes will tell you that “failing” is a necessary part of building software, rockets, or whatever because you’ve simply got to know what doesn’t work before NASA does.
At SpaceX, they don’t call it a failure when a zillion-dollar rocket explodes. They call it a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” Each time one of the Falcons blew up, they combed the wreckage for data and they LEARNED from it.
Failure happens when you quit too early or never start. Curriculum happens when you accept you don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re in school to learn it.
So What Are You Avoiding…
…because you’re afraid to fail?
Maybe it’s been so long since you’ve tried something new, inertia has become your normal, but deep down you’re bored and itchy. Maybe you’re ready to begin creating again, but what and where do you start?
We can help you get unstuck, on purpose, and make brave moves into a happy second half, but not until this fall because we are on a little #summerhiatus.
We’ve paused enrollment into our flagship course The Meaning of Midlife but we promise to fire it back up around Labor Day. (Unless God has some other plan). If you want to know when we do, so you can talk with us about it, reply to this email and we’ll keep you looped.
In the meantime, you know what to do.