Failure does not breed success but here’s how to make the best of it
When people repeatedly fail, it is probably because they are either not listening to feedback or not getting any.
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There are some sub-categories of failure that do seem to spawn success, and there are ways of responding to failure that can improve your prospects.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: UNSPLASH
F.D. Flam
A new scientific paper on failure may have succeeded in offering the most depressing opening line in the history of scientific papers: “Is there anything failure does not ruin? It destroys reputations, careers, and families; economic prospects, political prospects, and social ones.”
That’s perhaps a useful corrective to all the graduation speakers, motivational gurus and TED talk-giving experts who glibly recount how they persisted, failure after failure, on the way to success. It’s easy to forget that many more people fail at least as many times and never achieve their goal. There are many more frustrated authors than best-selling ones, failed entrepreneurs than self-made billionaires, and actor-baristas than bona fide movie stars.
