Failure

“One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.”

I love this quote from ‘Kung Fu Panda’. I have seen this quote to be true on so many levels and in so many situations.

Nobody likes to fail and failure is not a very pleasant experience. But some of the best learnings come only out of failure. Despite this we all fear failure, it is imbibed in us by society and years of being told not fail. I would like to know one person who went back from school and said, ‘Mom, I failed the test today’ and received a response which went like, ‘Great! So what did you learn from it’.

It often happens that the fear of failure is on top of an entrepreneurs mind and it causes them to make decisions in order to NOT fail. They do things that seem safe and not risky because failure would come at a cost.

Instead, as an entrepreneur it is important to make decisions to succeed.

What is the difference??

Take coding for example; if you are looking to succeed you will make all the mistakes and break the code as many times as possible till you succeed.

If you are coding not to fail, you will only do the most obvious things that you are sure would compile. You will never want your code to fail. In the process, you may never find the more optimised and brilliant solution that was always there within you.

As you keep writing code, which keeps failing, you understand the issue at a more fundamental level, you understand what works and what does not. You understand interdependencies better, which may not be described like an equation, but your mind is clear about it. This insight allows you to do things that others cannot.

Failure is merely experience that helps perfect you!

But you need to fall before you learn to walk and it is only then that you learn to run.