When Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was published in 1974 it became an instant sensation. By the time of author Robert M. Pirsig’s death in 2017, his book had been translated into dozens of languages with worldwide sales that exceeded 5 million copies. In the opinion of many – including this author – it is not just a good book, it is a great book, an important book.
Less well known is that Pirsig’s culture-altering creation was rejected by 121 publishers over a period of 5 years before he eventually found one willing to take the risk on his eccentric manuscript. Those who have read it will recognize that each of these rejections amounted to a rejection of Pirsig himself, as the book is in large part his deeply revealing personal journey of recovery from mental illness.
For his part, Pirsig was never deterred. In his own words, he had “gumption.” Others may refer to it as tenacity, perseverance, resilience, or simply grit. Whatever it is, it appears to be equal parts initiative, resourcefulness, resolve, self-reliance and dogged determination. Had Pirsig done what many of us would have done and simply given up, the world would have been deprived of the cultural treasure he created. He did not, and we are all richer for it.
A question I have asked in my own life and career is, can one develop gumption (tenacity, perseverance, resilience, grit) in someone who does not have it, or at least has never had the opportunity to demonstrate it? More to the point, can we assist our children, our students, our colleagues and ourselves to better prepare for and respond to failure and, by so doing, to more consistently succeed?
Having had ample opportunity to fail in my own life and having done so more times than I care to admit, I have developed a response to this question. Really just a collection of principles and related action steps, this informal philosophy of failure is offered not as a finished product, but merely as a starting point for those who seek to develop their own philosophy of failure and assist others to do so.
Principle 1: Failure is Inevitable
First, it is important to accept the fact that everyone fails. Failure is well ahead of taxes and a close second to death as part of the universal human experience. Fortunately, and in retrospect it was fortunate, I was raised in a home with 7 children and meager means that today would be generously termed lower middle class. As a result, I learned this primary principle early in life and became very familiar with failure.
Indeed, many of us in older generations grew up understanding that failure is the rule in life while success is the rare exception. In contrast, many children and young adults today did not have that opportunity. Between helicopter moms, snowplow dads, and a multitude of well-intended adults, a surprising number of young people have literally never experienced a face-plant failure. As a result, they are at a complete loss as to how to respond when it occurs.
Principle 2: Failure is Essential for Growth
Show me anyone who has accomplished anything meaningful and I will show you someone who has failed, usually a lot. The difference between them and the “losers” of the world is not that both failed, it is how they responded to failure. Thus, as counter intuitive as it may seem, and to paraphrase the memorable words of Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, failure is good, or at least it can lead to good.
Without question, the inventions of Thomas Edison changed the world. But to those who consider the great inventor a genius, I must respectfully disagree. Edison’s “genius” was his dogged persistence. His terrier-like tenacity eventually just wore problems down. Following a series of disappointing experiments during his quest to perfect a battery for storing electricity, Edison is said to have quipped, “I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” That is persistence.
Principle 3: Responding Positively to Failure is a Learned Skill
Twentieth century Danish existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, observed “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Learning from failure therefore requires having failed. While it may seem cold-hearted, we must give our children and our students the opportunity to fail, albeit in a comparatively safe and supportive environment. We should not shield them from failure. Moreover, we must remember that their failure is not our failure. Each of us has to own our failures in life, that is the rule.
Principle 4: Failures Are Caused by Actions and Inactions
Physics assures us that things do not just spontaneously happen in the universe. A failure is an effect and every effect has one or more causes. That is not to say that every cause or contributing factor was under our control. However, at least some of them typically were and it is important that we recognize and accept that fact.
Principle 5: We Are Not Our Failures
In game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets, the late Boston Red Sox first basemen, Bill Buckner, infamously allowed a bloop ground ball to dribble between his legs thereby extending the game and allowing the Mets to eventually win the game and the series.
Despite being hobbled by an injured ankle that probably should have kept him out of the game entirely, Buckner readily admitted that he should have made the play. However, to the end of his life he refused to let that single play define his career, although many others attempted to do so.
Like Buckner, we must learn to separate ourselves from our failures. What we do is not who we are. Our failures do not define us anymore than our successes. Both should be kept in perspective.
Principle 6: What Does Not Kill Us Can Make Us Stronger
With apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche, the caveat “can” has been added to his famous aphorism. Painful, traumatic events do not necessarily make us stronger. Indeed, they can have precisely the opposite effect. Rather, the long-term effect of such events on our lives is a choice. We must choose to use them in a positive and productive way.
The preceding principles provide a framework for better interpreting and understanding our failures. Responding positively and productively to failure, however, requires action.
Action Step 1: Admit That You Failed
Not unlike a 12-step recovery program, the first step in responding to failure is to acknowledge that we failed. While we may not admit it to anyone else, it is essential that we admit it to ourselves. You had objectives that you sought to achieve and you failed to achieve them: man up/woman up/person up and admit it.
Action Step 2: Take Appropriate Responsibility for Your Failure
The key word here is “appropriate,” meaning that proportional responsibility for the failure must be determined and allocated accordingly. What part of the failure was due to things we did or failed to do? What part was due to influences or circumstances that were out of our control?
It is possible to admit that we failed and also recognize that some of the reasons for failure were not realistically under our control. Naturally, we have to be careful in parsing responsibility for failure as the natural inclination is to exaggerate the effect of external influences and minimize our own responsibility.
Action Step 3: Determine the Cause of Your Failure
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a technique I teach student pharmacists to investigate medication errors when they regrettably but inevitably occur. The idea behind RCA is to list the factors and events that contributed to an error and attempt to identify the pivotal actions and/or inactions that were responsible for initiating the subsequent chain of events that resulted in the error.
Essentially, an RCA consists of asking and answering three questions: What happened? What should have happened? Why was there a difference? Answer those questions and your cause and contributing factors become apparent.
Action Step 4: Create a Plan to Avoid Future Failures
Once we understand the factors that led to our failure, it is possible to formulate a plan to avoid or mitigate failure in the future. Once again, the idea is to focus on the things we can change while recognizing and accepting those we cannot. This is essentially just an application of the Serenity Prayer, i.e., the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
If failure is baked into your current situation then the best course of action may be to change your situation. History is rife with examples of people who failed in their initial attempt only to wildly succeed in a different position, organization or environment.
Action Step 5: Implement Your Plan
A coach can draw up the most ingenious play ever created but the players must still execute it correctly. For this to occur it is necessary to anticipate and avoid potential barriers to implementation, thereby creating a feedback loop to Action Step 3.
Another recommendation here is to create contingencies within our plan. In real life, Plan A does not always work out. Fortunately, the alphabet has 25 other letters, so what is Plan B? Plan C?
Action Step 6: Make Revisions as Needed
The point here is simple but too often overlooked: keep on top of things. Unfortunately, even the best laid plans can go awry during implementation and course corrections may become necessary. Many of the objectives we pursue in life are very unforgiving of slow starts or stumbles if not promptly recognized and corrected.
Action Step 7: Model and Celebrate Failure
Some years ago, I hiked the Grand Canyon with a group of mostly strangers. Setting out, our only known commonality was a mutual love of nature. To break the ice, I suggested each of us describe the most embarrassing moment of our life. The initial reaction was not unlike what I often receive when I ask a question in class . . . crickets.
Forging ahead, I proceeded to tell the story of my own ultimate humiliation. Following the pitying laughter, the reaction was immediate and enthusiastic; everyone soon wanted to participate. It quickly became a contest of one-upsmanship to determine who had the most embarrassing or humiliating failure and it generated group solidarity and camaraderie that endured throughout the entire journey.
Owning up to failure, it turns out, creates an instant bond of trust and good will. I cannot imagine the effect would have been the same if we had instead shared stories of our greatest success.
Likewise, we should share our failures with our children, our students and our colleagues because doing so invites them to share theirs with us. More than share, we should celebrate our failures, and the more spectacular the failure, the greater the celebration should be: “You tried to do what? Wow, that’s awesome!”
Most people reading this essay have a resume or CV on which they list their accomplishments and achievements. How about a CV of our failures? What went wrong? Why? What was learned? What was subsequently accomplished that would not have been accomplished had it not been for the initial failure and how we responded to it?
Many higher education programs now require students to maintain portfolios of their achievements. Why not require a section on failures that includes an analysis of why each occurred and what was learned? Similarly, “tell me about a time you failed and what you learned from it” should be a required question on all student applicant and employment interviews.
Action Step 8: Keep Failure and Life Itself in Perspective
In the final analysis, both our failures and our successes are temporary. It is worthwhile to periodically ask, “what is important in my life and how do I measure success?” Yes, we must please our boss, but beyond that we should not give others the power to define what constitutes success in our lives. That prerogative belongs exclusively to each of us.
Shortly after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs made an observation of profound insight: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” I cannot say it any better than that.
Finally, I would like to leave you with one last thought that routinely occurs to me when I fish a little creek I have walked since I was old enough to hold a fly rod.
Despite the apparent tranquility in this photo, a battle is being waged. The battle is between rock and water. The rock is hard, rigid and unyielding. The rock seeks to impose its will on the water by forcing it to alter its course to the sea. And to the casual observer, the rock appears to be winning. But the water is flexible, adaptable, patient and, most importantly, persistent. Eventually, inevitably, the water wins.
In our lives, each of us has a choice: we can be the rock or we can be the water. My final recommendation is this: be the water . . . flexible, adaptable, patient and persistent!
Note: An interview of me on this topic may be found here: https://lnkd.in/gxdJ7-kS