Failure?

Failure is not a popular subject. It is far more gratifying to relate events in your life that have been successful than those that have resulted in failure. But what is the cost of focusing on success and ignoring or hiding failure? It may be the most destructive action that humans nurture.
People have reversed the focus on event evaluation. Little is said about process. It's all about who won, how much and who gets the glory. When people do not work out in an employment arena they are fired, failure again, loser. Don't misunderstand me, if a surgeon is planning on removing my gall bladder I will not be looking for one who has killed all of his patients. I won't be looking for carpenters who tables fall apart.
Here's the point. Not much happens that doesn't have failure associated with it. More importantly, not much happens without a lot of failure happening.

Everyone interested in sports knows Babe Ruth, the home run king. His failure rate at the plate was 65.8%, that's two out of three times he went back to the bench and sat. Have you thought about your efforts as a child? When you were born you had a few obstacles before you. First, it was vital for you to learn a foreign language and your fluency was critical to your comfort level. Your primary interest was food. What you discovered was that as your ability to describe what you wanted verbally improved your comfort improved. But your ability to develop a vocabulary was tedious, inaccurate, hard and no one who could communicate both ways was available to help you, at least not right away. You had to learn by immersion. Very frustrating but effective.

Next on your agenda was getting from one place to another. Rolling didn't get you much, crawling was a little better but becoming bipedal was the berries, I mean that was cool. It excited your parents too and the adulation for a step or two was out of this world. After many pratfalls and busted noses, heads and scares for you and your parents you discovered balance and voila, ambulation.

So why is failure treated like such bad thing? Failure is a true measure of curiosity, adventure, trying, doing, invention and on and on. What do you say we embrace it rather than pretend like it's a bad thing. Even Michael Jordan's field goal percentage was just under 50%. That translates into for every shot he made he missed one or his failure rate was half the time.

So, go for it. Cut your kids, co workers, friends, spouses, parents, et al a little slack. You might even consider cutting yourself a little slack, my friend. So maybe I will continue to play golf.

Herb Ratliff, December 27, 2011