The “F” Word

Failure.  Why do most people look down on it?  Why do most people have a hard time accepting it? The role of failure deserves more positive attention and essentially is the best medicine out there to succeed.  

The CEO of eBay was recently interviewed a New York Times article titled “There’s No Need to Bat” .900“.  He discusses the importance of accepting failure and encourages us all to take risks:

Another really valuable piece of advice early in my career was from a guy named Kent Thiry, who was another of my early bosses and is now C.E.O. at DaVita.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from a real fear of failure. Kent said, “You know, John, your challenge is you’re trying to bat .900.” And he said: “When you were in college, you got a lot of A’s. You could get 90, 95 percent right. When you took your first job as an analyst, you were really successful and felt like you were batting .900.”

But he said, and this is probably five years into my career: “Now you’ve moved from the minor leagues. You’re playing in the major leagues, and if you expect to bat .900, what happens is, either you come up at bat and you freeze because you’re so afraid of swinging and missing, or you’re a little afraid to step into the batter’s box.”

He said, “Best I can tell, the best hitters in Major League Baseball, world class, they can strike out 6 times out of 10 and still be the greatest hitter of all time.”

And he said, “That’s my philosophy — the key is to get up in that batter’s box and take a swing. And all you have to do is hit one single, a couple of doubles, and an occasional home run out of every 10 at-bats, and you’re going to be the best hitter or the best business leader around.” You can’t play in the major leagues without having a lot of failures.

It is important to accept and acknowledge the lessons you have learned from the mistakes you have made.

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