Failing is overrated

We see articles all the time saying how great failure is. 

It’s an opportunity to learn the lessons, dust yourself off and do it differently next time. 

Great thinkers and great inventors like Einstein, Edison and Archimedes are quoted. Failing hundreds or thousands of times and then...Eureka! 

Success at last. 

Learning from failure and being resilient enough to try again are of course important and can be a path to future success. This is particularly true when blazing a trail in a new field like inventing stuff or astro physics. There is no roadmap to follow so experimentation is the only way.

On a personal level, learning from failure and trying again is a positive thing. We try some public speaking which doesn’t go as well as hoped, or try a particular approach with a customer or employee which falls flat. Stopping, reflecting, learning and trying something different next time makes perfect sense.

Ok, so I agree that learning from failure has its merits. 

That’s all good but a better and smarter way way in most cases is learning from success. What sets humans apart is access to knowledge and best practice. Observing and learning from successful people, successful teams, successful leaders and so on is a quicker and less painful route in most cases than learning from failure.

So in business we can start up a new venture and plough our own furrow, making mistakes as we go, tweaking, adapting and moving on after each setback. Or we can learn from the best - the Jobs', Bransons, Krocs and Disneys of this world. Or maybe that guy you met at a networking group who started his business at a similar time to you and seems to be doing brilliantly well. What did they do that led to their success? Can you take the best of what they did and sprinkle it around your business?

We can also learn from success by surrounding ourselves with experts and mentors who have knowledge and experience they can share to help us get things right, the first time we do it.

So by all means let's learn from our failures but let's also be hungry to learn from success.

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