I Never Feared Failure Again After Adopting This Mindset
This Is Why You Should Want To Fail Often and Fast
When I began my tech career 4 years ago, I was always afraid to make mistakes. I was scared of failure.
One day I started a new job. My new manager had a completely different outlook on failure. When something went wrong or if we failed to meet targets, it was never about pointing fingers.
In his eyes, we had failed as a team. He always looked for what lessons we could learn to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated. This not only strengthened our relationship as a team but also made everyone more seasoned as engineers.
When you can’t guarantee success, learn from failure
Information theory is a mathematical study developed in the 1940s by Claude Shannon.
The basic idea is that the more information we have about something, the less likely we are to be wrong about it.
- Consider rolling a die. Before I role, I know there is an equal chance it lands on a number between 1 and 6. After the die stops rolling, it lands on one number. So it results in a piece of information I previously didn’t have.
- Albert Einstein once said “I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”
Learning from our failures is like rolling dice. We might be wrong many times, but eventually, we will be right.
Failure is also a key part of what Jeff Bezos called Amazon’s Day 1 Culture.
This culture was defined as always behaving as if they were a hungry start-up. In his 2016 letter to shareholders, Bezos wrote:
“Day 1 is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental. It means being brave enough to fail if it means that by applying lessons learned, we can better surprise and delight customers in the future.”
That is why you should want to fail fast and often. Failing allows you to apply lessons learned and improve at a faster rate.
If you failed to —
- get the job you applied for
- pass the exam you studied for
- complete the marathon you’ve been training for
- Or the freelance gig you’ve been pitching for
Whatever it is, remind yourself that losing is how you eventually win.
Thanks for reading.
