The Virtue of Failure
Let’s face it, we live in a success-driven world. It’s in this context that we celebrate names like LeBron James, Peyton Manning, and Mickey Mantle. Businesses like Google, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart are hallmarks of success. In the realm of science, Albert Einstein is considered a giant among giants for his theories of relativity and Thomas Edison built an empire on the success of his inventions. In every human endeavor, there are those we laud for their achievements as shining examples of triumph. But these champions of sport, industry, and science did not enter the world wholly formed and perfect. They built their success on the lessons learned in failure.
Baseball makes for an oft-used example of success in failure. Mickey Mantle, considered by many as one of the greatest players to ever play the game, once said, “During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.” With a lifetime batting average of .298, Mantle failed 7 out of every 10 times he tried to hit the ball, and yet he was unquestionably a success on the ball field.
Thomas Edison also had to overcome his fair share of failures before discovering the secret to an invention that would illuminate the world, the light bulb. But these failures never dissuaded him from continuing in his quest. He saw each of these failures as a learning experience that brought him closer and closer to his goal. He once said in regards to his work on the light bulb, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Call it what you will, stubbornness, persistence, grit, or the pure will to succeed against all reason, but Edison refused to let these mishaps deter him from the end goal. He lived by the motto, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Albert Einstein is still considered a household name nearly 60 years after his death. This is a testament to the contributions he made to science, contributions that changed the way we look at the universe. But even he faced failures along his path to greatness. He was a gifted student in the areas of math and science, but weak in the other academic subjects. He was so weak that he failed the placement examination for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. Refusing to give up, he spent the next year shoring up his academic weaknesses. He was accepted into the Zurich Polytechnic in the following year at the age of 17. Upon graduating with a teaching certificate, Einstein was unable to find a teaching position. Once again, the twenty-one-year-old Einstein refused to let his frustration get the best of him. He took a job as a patent clerk. Rather than wallow in despair, he took advantage of the position he found himself in, exercising his mind by studying patent applications related to time synchronization and electrical signal transmissions, two areas that would play prominent roles in his theory of special relativity. He also formed a discussion group with several friends that spent evenings discussing the latest scientific discoveries. Though he failed initially to get into the school of his choice and he failed to land a teaching job after his graduation, he never stopped pursuing his dream and within four years of graduating published one of the most important scientific theories of all time.
Mickey Mantle, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein were three very different men with three very different pursuits, but they each had something in common. They refused to let failure deter them from accomplishing what they set out to do. They understood that the road to success is laden with failures and setbacks. They understood that there is no success without failure. They faced their failures, turned them into experience, and continued. For some of us, the fear of failure becomes so great that we refuse to even try. We rob ourselves of the lessons to be learned and the success to be had. I’d love to hear about your experiences. Are there things you’ve been reluctant to try due to fear of failure? What failures did you learn from and how did they lead to eventual success? Chime in and let us know about it.
This blog post has gotten much longer than I intended so to wrap up I’ll leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
