On failure and Beyond

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit -
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author Unknown

Failure has been a thing to avoid at all costs since the dawn of the days. In tribal communities failing in rivaling or getting hurt while hunting meant dispatching from the tribe, which lead to sure dead. We are literally scared to death about failure.

There is plenty of scientific proof for the phenomenon. One key concept is the Prospect Theory that won the Nobel Prize in 2002. Prospect Theory says that we are much more affected - actually twice as much - about negative than positive. E.g. losing 1000 € would be balanced with the sensation of winning 2000 €.

Our perception is where we find the most value, and we tend to be heading where our perception is. One entrepreneur who is a keen white-water rafter shared an advice:

To avoid the rocks do not look at the rocks.

With avoiding moose and reindeer accidents the advice is the same; Looking at the animal will steer you that way.

No wonder we are afraid of failure and avoid negative and still hit negative. It’s twice as powerful than positive. We steer where we are focused. The failures even seem to have bigger memory trace, so we will remember them better than the triumphs, again causing us to avoid failure prone situations. So how to turn this ancient mechanism into your advantage?

Instead of crippling yourself with the fear of failing in action, think how you would fail without action. What would you lose if you would not act?

The 10-10-10 rule by Suzy Welch leverages the negative force for our advantage. The 10-10-10 rule outlines three simple imagination exercises:

1. What your avoidance causes you in the next 10 minutes?
2. What it causes you in the next 10 months?
3. Finally, what it causes you in the next 10 years?

Lets think an example. You can pick the dearest to you, but I am using one of the most common corporate trade-off here: TV over not calling to a client. What would that mean with the 10-10-10 rule?

1. I would get my 10 mins of entertainment, but I would fail to initiate the talk with client and do the right thing once.
2. I would get my 300 hours entertainment (10 months has 300 days, which has approx 1 hour TV a day). But I would fail in initiating talks with 100 clients, not building a loyal customer base and not building a habit (a rutine) of doing the right thing.
3. I would get my 3600 hours of TV (10 years has 120 months, which has 3600 days). But I would fail in initiating talks with 1000+ clients, building a loyal customer base, providing great solutions to whole industry and not introducing the habit of doing the right thing to the younger talents in the company. 

Think what kind of multiplicative effect that has! And my calculations are cautious. 

Next time when the avoidance of failure slows us down, turn it to your advantage by thinking with the 10-10-10 rule what is your failure if you do not act - That way you put the failure to work for you.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment. - Jim Rohn

This article was inspired by Finnish Fail Day (only in Finnish).
By Roope Kärki.