The author and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields recently posted a blog, Why Failure Must Be on the Table, which describes the experiences of failures as gateways to opportunities. He writes, “Entrepreneurship–or any process that seeks to evolve the status quo–requires you to regularly test commonly held limits and beliefs. The natural outcome of this is that sometimes you’re right, other times you’re wrong. Either way, you never know until you get out of your head and take action in the world.
The potential not just for failure, but failure that matters, failure you feel, must be on the table. If it’s not, then what you’re setting out to do is either so safe or so devoid of the potential for impact that success might allow you to check a box on a piece of paper, but beyond that, nobody’ll care. Including you.”
We must know that what we are embarking on has the capacity to fail and yet give us as entrepreneur’s incredible lessons to grow and stretch. It’s the learning process and taking the leap that distinguishes the success stories to the stories that never get told. At times, it may feel like ‘a leap of faith’ but it brings us closer to the edges of our dreams. We push ourselves and do it afraid, because not doing it is more painful – and we fail ourselves.
Fields adds in his blog, “So, yes, living, acting and deciding to move forward in the face of potential failure isn’t easy. Especially when it requires you to go all in. And especially later in your lifecycle when you’ve got more on the line. To risk success in art, in business, in love, in life is, indeed, a bit terrifying.
But really, what’s the alternative?”
What is the alternative? Take the risk – and be willing to leap into failure that matters.
Mary Anne