You Can’t Spell Failure (or Success) Without ‘U’
August 5, 2009
Filed Under: in Analysis, Startups
Author: Tina Seelig
Welcome back.
I require my students to write a failure résumé. That is, to craft a résumé that summarizes all their biggest screw ups — personal, professional, and academic. For every failure, each student must describe what he or she learned from that experience. Just imagine the looks of surprise this assignment inspires in students who are so used to showcasing their successes.
However, after they finish their résumé, they realize that viewing their experiences through the lens of failure forced them to come to terms with the mistakes they have made along the way and to extract important lessons from them. In fact, as the years go by, many former students continue to keep their failure résumé up-to-date, in parallel with their traditional résumé of successes.
A failure resume is a quick way to demonstrate that failure is an important part of our learning process, especially when you’re stretching your abilities, doing things the first time, or taking risks. We hire people who have experience not just because of their successes but also because of their failures. Failures increase the chance that you won’t make the same mistake again.
Failures are also a sign that you have taken on challenges that expand your skills. In fact, many successful people believe that if you aren’t failing sometimes then you aren’t taking enough risks. Additionally, it is pretty clear that the ratio of our successes and failure is pretty constant. So, if you want more successes, you are going to have to tolerate more failure along the way.
This is a great video clip of Randy Komisar talking about the role of failure in success... It is a favorite on the ECorner web site.
I love Tina Seelig's posts. Welcome to SiliconANGLE.
Every entrepreneur should have a very long failure resume. Even the best entrepreneurs fail but the very best don't fail to learn and innovate from failure.
I was having a conversation the other day in Palo Alto with someone and they said that Slide has failed. This is a great example: look at Max Levchin the serial entrepreneur, paypal mafia member, and CEO of Slide. He has been the cover story of leading magazines and blog articles as one of the best entrepreneurs out there yet Slide has had two of what this person would call "failures" under their belt. They are working on their third reboot of their business.
The person that I was talking to pointed out that that Max and his team have failed. I say no way. He has had minor failures but he's still in business and putting together another shot at innovating.
Entrepreneurship like life is a marathon failures happen but good entrepreneurs called them "minor inconveniences".
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I really can't wait to write mine now, its length may not be very eco friendly though...
Extraordinary video...
Thankfully we who live in the fishbowl have an automated failure resume
system - most of the tech blogosphere.
If it bleeds, it leads!
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I'm not in your class, but I'm going to write a failure résumé as well!
[...] is nothing worse than wallowing in the sour soup of a lost love or a failed business. Add it to your failure résumé, take time to learn from the experience, and buy a brand-new pair of socks! Your next pair might [...]