

If you're not failing you're not trying. - dshipper
http://dshipper.posterous.com/if-youre-not-failing-youre-not-trying

======
jasonkester
Real world example: Rock Climbing

There are two basic approaches to route climbing with ropes: "Traditional
Climbing" with removable gear placed as the rock allows and the potential for
injury if you were to fall, and "Sport Climbing", with closely spaced fixed
gear, where falling is a matter of course.

"Trad" climbers will often go years, decades, entire careers without ever
falling off the rock. "Sport" climbers will average around a dozen good falls
on a typical day out.

So there you have two observable groups, one where failure is not an option,
the other where failure is commonplace. Given the difference in mindset, it's
not surprising that you'll often see 14 year old kids with one year of
experience in a world where falling is just part of the game out-climbing men
with 20 years experience who've never truly exceeded their limits.

~~~
nicpottier
I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but I'll go with it, and expand upon
it even more.

Those climbers who primarily boulder, that's climbing without a rope, fairly
close to the ground, are better still. Because they work on insanely difficult
problems and fall all the time.

~~~
reemrevnivek
You're missing one of the points of the article: When you fail, it has to be
cheap (i.e, a rope attached so you fall a few feet).

Bouldering and falling all the time does not mean that you're failing cheaply.
Falling hurts!

~~~
jasonkester
No, he's right. Boulder falls are nearly always soft, and certainly aren't
painful. Usually they're only a foot or so onto a pad. It's actually pretty
rare to come off from high up and miss a pad.

Granted, you can still break things. But it still works out safer on a per-
hour basis than Volleyball.

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scrrr
I find the notion of failing as something that should be aspired to worrisome.
Often the cost of failure is too high.

You don't want an airliner-pilot to seek failure. If banks make a big mistake
and we slide into recession, people loose jobs, should we pat them on the
shoulder for trying? What about the judge that sends an innocent man to
prison? What about the solider that accidentally shoots an unarmed man? Can we
assume he has learned from his mistake and will now be a better soldier? While
this might be the case, the answer must be: No, we shouldn't.

Instead of postulating a culture of "fail often", we should find a higher
standard. One that is based on hard work, sober and educated decision making
and quality.

Furthermore it can be argued that one can learn more from success than from
failure. Failure can be a byproduct of trying, but by no means it should be
inverted into a measurement of success.

Let's stop this trend towards failure-ism now. I have a feeling that it might
have very negative consequences.

~~~
dshipper
Thanks for your comment scrrr, and while I see where you're coming from I
don't agree. You brought up airline pilots and how they shouldn't seek
failure. Obviously you don't want them to seek failure while they are in the
sky. But in fact they seek failure ALL THE TIME while being trained. They
simulate systems malfunctions and bad weather conditions and they mess up. In
the simulator. But when they face those obstacles in the air they are
invariably better prepared than had they never challenged themselves in the
first place in the name of success.

~~~
mgkimsal
They seek simulated failure of the equipment to test themselves. They _do not_
set out intending to fail in their reactions to the simulated failure. But, if
they do, it's a simulator and they can start over with new lessons learned.

------
jkahn
I don't agree with this whole glorification-of-failure stuff that is posted
occasionally.

It's not that I see failure as particularly bad, or horrible. It's that it's
not the point. The point is to WIN. When you launch a startup, and fail, try
again. But wouldn't it have been better to succeed? Isn't the point to make
money, or build a platform, or win the game? Not every product has a market.
Not every customer call will result in a sale. But the point is to make a
winner.

Why would you purposely seek out failure?

Of course, the undercurrent here is that in order to succeed - in order to win
big - you must risk a lot, and risk failure. Risking failure is necessary.
Making mistakes happens. If you're not risking failure or humiliation, you're
not playing the best game you can.

Risking failure is not the same as actually failing.

Maybe that's just semantics, but it is a very important difference. If you're
purposely seeking failure, I feel sorry for you.

~~~
dshipper
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I see your point, and I think that all of
us have the goal of winning in mind. Of course it would be better to just
succeed right off the bat. But that's not realistic. Success is a process.

This post wasn't really about seeking out failure as it was about recognizing
that we have limitations and taking that as a challenge to overcome them. It
was also about further realizing that failure at something isn't necessarily
an indictment of your ability to succeed but a sign that you are pushing
yourself sufficiently that if you keep learning from your mistakes you WILL
succeed eventually.

------
kabuks
Last night as I was closing my laptop for the day I noticed that I had a lump
in my throat and a clenched feeling in my chest.

I was _lightly_ entertaining a passing thought about shutting down my startup.

I was thinking: "I love my startup. I put so much work and heart into it. But
maybe I should shut it down."

You see, I had just finished reading a series of emails from customers telling
me how unusable they thought it was. They really loved the idea, but just
couldn't use it.

These were smart people, who got what we were trying to do, and yet were
leaving.

And then it struck me: I was failing! That's why it's hard to breathe.

The feeling was so intolerable, and so unfamiliar (I rarely set myself in a
high-probability-of-failure situation), that I didn't even know what it was.

All I knew is "This feeling must stop. At any cost"

I agree that failing isn't something to be aspired to. But I don't think
that's what the OP is saying.

If I'm stretching myself, I should be feeling this more and more. And getting
more comfortable with it as just part of the picture of a successful life.

------
mbesto
Michael Jordan Failure Commercial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc>

After growing up watching MJ play, it speaks volumes.

~~~
digitaltothem
I love the MJ example. This is actually what I first thought of when I read
the title of the article. The way I see it, the point is in trying, giving
your best and not giving up, not in chasing failure. One should not be afraid
to fail, but should always strive for success. And work on it!

------
_ques
It is important to differentiate between

* Catastrophic failures: You fail so bad that you have no option but to trash everything and start again

* Detectable / Manageable failures: You fail, but this failure is not central to your existence, so you simply try again

While there are some cases where you have no option but to risk catastrophic
failures, manageable failures are something people completely miss.

Fitness / Weight training has all sorts of examples of this, the goal is to
identify the limits of your abilities and to push this limit, _without_
risking permanent damage.

Consider this: Blogger (Pyra Collab tools), Flickr (GNE), Twitter (Odeo),
Nokia Phones (losses for first 15 yrs), Google (initial focus was Enterprise
Search until Adwords / Adsense acquisition) were all pushing the limits, and
failing, but not so spectacularly that they didn't have resources left to
pivot.

Identifying the difference, and the ability to contain possibly-catastrophic
errors into manageable pieces is the true art of the startup.

------
idlewords
If you're not failing you may be succeeding.

~~~
droz
or you aren't doing anything.

------
jasonlynes
i was just reading about this today in "Rework", about failing in obscurity.
similar notion to failing at something mundane with the M&M's. relish the
opportunity you have while operating in obscurity, to fail as often as you can
so you can adjust and learn and tweak and process all the data that comes with
that.

also reminds me of the zuckerberg quote: "unless you are breaking stuff, you
are not moving fast enough." failure isn't the goal, rather a byproduct of
good work.

~~~
dshipper
I had never heard that zuckerberg quote before but I love it do you remember
where you got it from?

~~~
jasonlynes
on startup quote: <http://startupquote.com/post/1624569753>

------
ecaradec
Failing is a question of time scaling. If you look at a small piece of time or
at a larger piece of time everything fail : \- Roman fail seen from today,
that was a big empire \- MS is failing today \- Facebook failed sometimes and
will fail one day If you look at a micro level there is failure everywhere,
bugs, stuff, missed contracts. If you fail AND are still growing indeed then
it's actually a success... for the moment.

------
robeastham
This post is genius I'm off out to buy a pack of Maltesers right now - I hate
M&Ms. It made me think of this picture too:

[http://londonleisureandpleasure.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-
hav...](http://londonleisureandpleasure.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-have-more-
freedom-than-you-know.html)

A friend of mine sent it to me a while back but I remembered it recently
whilst watching the uprising in Egypt. It now hangs on the wall in my
bathroom. I'm sure I've been failing unwittingly and wittingly with my new
start-up:

<http://www.mightycv.com>

In spite of any failure "I know the only thing I'm addicted to right now is
winning" - read this inspirational and somewhat related post by Jason Baptiste
from OnStartups for a great take on this now infamous Charlie Sheen quote,
entrepreneurship and failure: <http://bit.ly/efGLFi>

------
michaeldhopkins
The key to this post is that the candy-throwing experiment is not failure.
It's training to become oblivious to public criticism, so one doesn't choke
and fail in actual endeavors.

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tuhin
I wrote about this in detail some time back:
<http://tuhinkumar.com/journal/screw-up/>

Think-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Iterate-Succeed (very similar to Feynman algorithm)

~~~
svdad
I think you mean

Think-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Succeed-Screw

If you're getting it that often, why stop?

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toddwahnish
Always an interesting debate on whether you should try and fail quickly in a
project etc. The faster you fail, the more m&m's you can attempt to catch in
your mouth?

------
bluethunder
True growth only lies at the edge of failure

~~~
dshipper
Agreed, thanks for your thoughts.

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wmat
The "fail fast" meme is useful for me only when followed up with "deliberate
practice", so I don't fail again.

------
rheide
There's so many articles these days about failing. What if you fail to fail?

