It's Not Success, It's Failing With Style

Failure is a dichotomy. A healthy fear of failure allows us to push bounds beyond where we currently are. At the same time, failure is something to embrace. Perhaps not a warm embrace, but a casual acquaintance at the very least.

How is this possible? How can we fear failure while embracing it? The answer lies in the why.

Why do we fail? I am not talking about what in a particular circumstance made your failure a success, but more of a general question. Why is failure out there? The answer is two-fold, which allows for the dichotomy in the first place. First, it drives us to succeed, and secondly, it allows us to make mistakes. Let's cover these separately.

Without an opposition, no one would have a desire to succeed. It is only with failure that success is important and lasting. And what we determine as success is just as important as what we determine as failure.

A couple weekends ago, I was able to attend the Meeplecon convention. The trip was horrifying. My jeep broke down on the way down and we were stranded on the road for hours. On the way back, it was still not fixed and I ended up riding a bus through the night and all the next day to make it home. People did not show up to our personally scheduled events, and yet, the trip was a success. Why? Well, a couple of reasons. 

First, the object of going down was to gain market information, which we did, and hopefully generate an interest in our games. We got an email list of people who would be willing to back our games when they hit Kickstarter. This list is short and they alone will not be enough to back the games, but that was not the goal. The goal was to gain interest and was accomplished.

Secondly, I felt like I would never want to do a franchise, and yet, I found myself at a local business wondering how is this not other places? This could do really well in another city, and I could do really well in running a business like this. Meepleville is a local board game cafe with an extensive library, plenty of patrons, and a small eatery that is joined in which people could traverse food to games and vice versa. That also made the trip a success, so it is all how you perceive success.

Now let's cover why it is good that we make mistakes. Mistakes allow for learning. Learning allows for growth, and growth allows for success. So in its own way, failing allows for success. We must take the time to learn from our mistakes, otherwise, failure is all for naught.

We can take a good hard look at failure, resolutely decide never to go there and make it to success. But inevitably, regardless of what we may decide, failure in a small part at least will happen and we can use that failure as a springboard to continue forward, generating future successes and future endeavors.