It’s hard to get ahead in life unless you’re comfortable with the possibility of failure. Talk about a word with a negative connotation. It evokes a horrible scenario with terrible consequences in the plan of life.
But is it realistic?
I was laid off from a job during a terrible economic downturn in the late 80’s. I spoke out about an injustice and got a nice kick in the door as a reward instead of the pat on the back I thought I would get. I felt like a huge failure and was terrified that I would never get another job. I could not sleep. I could not eat.
Do you know I got another job in less than three weeks? The boss of this new position had no problem with my being fired. He was looking for someone like me! Someone who would speak.
If I hadn’t “failed” at the first job, I wouldn’t have realized that different companies look for different characteristics in their employees.
Failure teaches us many valuable lessons. The main one is that it is okay to take risks, whatever the outcome. That without taking risks, you can’t find out what you’re made of.
If you look at the stories of some successful people, you will see that most of them came back several times from the edge of the abyss, that “success” was anything but an easy and direct path.
Society developed the concept of failure to keep people dependent, to keep them thinking too little, to keep them from acting. It’s easier to control ourselves when we’re all running scared.
The best advice we could give the next generation would be to go out there and try to fail! If that was the goal, imagine how brave and bold business owners and life owners would be.
What would you try if you were not afraid of failure?