/** I want to write something here and keep it for later because I have a feeling it is going to be relevant at some point down the road or at least make more sense eventually.
I think I have interpreted failure all wrong for my entire life.
I always felt failure led to the lack of an outcome, defeat, a sudden STOP in that so-called “event,” and that signaled the end of the process or event. People would say that it is important to “learn from your failures” and I took this to mean “learn what not to do next time.” This has merit of course. I really saw it as, when you fail, there is no more return that comes after that.
I think now that a lot can actually come from/out of failure.
Say you have two people, they both are going through the motions of a process/activity, and then after 1 year, a binary decision is made and one is deemed a success and one a failure. Assuming you only know that day the potential reason why one person succeeded and the other failed (as in you couldn’t know beforehand), one could argue that both are relatively equal up until that day. The thought experiment works even better if the outcome is dictated by some level of luck. Then one could argue:
“Well, even if that person failed, their process may not have been THAT different than the person who succeeded, and they may have insight or unique experience that could be valuable, EVEN if they eventually failed.”
This scenario can happen often, where you make a series of decisions and you don’t know until later whether you are right or wrong. In addition, you may make a decision that is initially viewed as unfavorable/incorrect/wrong but it later turns out to be correct/successful…in this case the quality of experience and decision making may be viewed negatively for some time and then positively EVEN if the decision making is ACTUALLY positive the entire time (this is messy with exceptions but bear with me).
Now this is not the case for every example, because during a process, you can in many cases assess the quality of decision making on an ongoing basis, as in there is some real-time feedback. You know early on or in the middle who is succeeding and failing and that is fine.
The point is I don’t think the road ends necessarily after failure.
There can be real constructive value from experiences that led to failure and it can even represent scars/wounds, that someone endured something difficult and despite no “success” they still have “something” to show for it.
If I had 30 minutes to talk with someone who has read a lot about opening a restaurant but never opened a restaurant and someone else who has opened and closed 2 restaurants, sure the latter would be a “failure” but it may be more valuable to hear their experience and what they felt they did right and wrong, which may or may not be correct, but that isn’t the point.
(This may be obvious but worth restating because it can apply to many other situations.)
Something valuable can come after a failure, sometimes even more interesting doors open up after failures. This phenomenon prompted me to write this.
I can’t describe examples unfortunately but I’ve seen different people who have experienced failures and some of them have actually been given or pursued opportunities, and succeeded in getting those opportunities and even enjoyed some level of success in those opportunities after their failure.
In some cases, they had access to those opportunities which may have only been there IF THEY HAD SUCCEEDED! It’s remarkable. It’s literally making the best out of a bad situation.
It suggests that some activities provide immense value just by doing them 😮 and that the outcome sometimes does NOT matter (oh really now? 🧐).
I feel this is actually obvious yet debatable…along the lines of “journey vs destination” which could be a whole other post.
Happy to share specific examples in private messages.
Now I’m not saying to just do things, fail, and then explore what comes after…
Obviously there is a highly positive weighting for people who try something for the first time and succeed (numerous examples in tech, investing, science), and interestingly enough, I’ve seen examples of people who fail their first venture but succeed in their second and get close or reach that same level of positive weighting. However, serial failing I think is by and large viewed negatively and so it is hard to argue for that case (of course there are exceptions).
The lesson I suppose is if you fail once, be extremely thoughtful about your next venture:
But what about failing fast and failing hard?
I think that is referencing a different type of failure, a more mild failure.
Mess up and get things wrong so you can iterate and improve vs. actually making a big mistake or failing at completing the entire operation.
Or even worse, you fail at the entire operation, and you insist on continuing that operation (this sadly happens and it is usually rather poor behavior) as if that operation cannot be ceased…as if it has a second life…as if it cannot die.
Now, I’m not saying that whenever something goes wrong, throw in the towel.
It is a gray area, a fine line to walk between:
“We messed up, we should give it another earnest try,”
and
“We messed up, we should close shop, admit failure, and move onwards.”
This article went on a number of tangents but I think I hit on all of the main points.
There is more to say about “inputs vs. outputs” and other relevant topics as well.
tl;dr failure can be rather (unexpectedly) constructive; failing and iterating is GOOD and is NOT what I’m particularly talking about; it is OK to shutter an operation!
Cheers,
Vish
Published on January 26, 2023.