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Recently, Elon Musk saw a billion-dollar rocket blow, up, his car profits decline 20 % as a result of price declines, and his Twitter investment lose about 50 % of its purchase price. What is most impressive about Musk is that he considers all of this part of the learning process. For example, he described the rocket blow up as unplanned destruction.
There are other failures that have received big headlines: The fox Dominion settlement, increased shootings, and Sudan rioting are notable examples.
I am a significant believer that failure can be a big part of learning. For example, kids are great at learning by falling and getting up and trying again. Sports teams get better through experience. Medicine or emergency care is learned by experience. These examples are usually accompanied by extensive support to limit damage and supervision to enhance a learning experience. I remember the fear when my daughter decided to jump out of the crib compared to the trial and error and support she received learning to walk.
However, one must honestly evaluate the learning versus message evidence from failure. Annie Duke has a great book called “quit” which outlines some, of the conditions to just walk away. She argues that success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right things to stick to and quitting the rest.” In particular, probability, risk, resource requirements, and value are key factors that may not be considered when evaluating when to quit. In addition, establishing goals and priorities are an important aspect of evaluating failure.
I frankly believe with the exception of issues like safety, we can afford more risk. In particular we underestimate the upside potential of an effort. Winning the lottery, a sporting event or profiting in the stock market can simply have more gain than we consider. How good is our information, what are the consequences of mistakes, and how much risk can we afford? We generally are overly concerned with the consequences of mistakes than the potential of risk. This approach is well stated by Sheryl Sandberg in her comment:” What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”