Failure.
I’ve only succeeded in a fraction of the things I’ve set out to do in life. Failure is a thing I’ve grown far very familiar with, relative to my number of successes. I’ve grown to embrace the very essence of failure.
This isn’t to say that I’m unhappy (though every waking moment is unceasingly agonizing), however. Failure is an integral part of success. Without it, success means nothing.
Everything is relative. There’s no foot without an inch, no gallon without an ounce, etc. Likewise, there’s no success without failure. Take one out of the equation and you lose the other.
Unfortunately, having acknowledged this, I’ve disproportionately failed significantly more than I’ve succeeded.
I can do lots of cool stuff– sure.
I can ride a unicycle. I can juggle 3 balls at the same experience level (or better) as the Ringling Brothers. I’m arguably the best Tetris player that’s ever walked the planet. I can come up with anagrams for virtually any word/phrase/sentence with relative ease (as long as there’s a fair proportion of vowels to consonants). “FAILURE” = “IF A RULE”
There are many things I’m brilliant in, but that’s no excuse for failing virtually everything else.
Of all games I’ve ever participated in- sports, board games, video games, high-jump contests- I’d venture to say I’ve lost 90-95% of all of them.
Statistically speaking, it’s virtually impossible to be this awful at life. In the words of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s R.P. McMurphy, one of my favorite characters from any story, “I’m a goddamn marvel of modern science.” Lamentably, I’m a marvel of science for a rather upsetting reason, which is that I’ve experienced an unbelievably disproportionate number of failures to successes.
I looked at myself in the mirror today. But today was different. I stared at myself. I looked into my own eyes for 15 full minutes without blinking, repeating the phrase, “you are a failure,” until eventually, I realized this wasn’t really doing anything for me.
Maybe it was the verbal self-deprecation, or maybe it was the 15 minutes without blinking, but either way, I’ve never felt worse.
I never let fear get in the way of trying new things, but I always keep in mind that I’m probably going to suck at those new things once I do, in fact, try them.
Wayne Gretzky once said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” That’s very true.
Sadly, it’s ALSO true that I miss 100% of the shots that I do take, also. I still take those shots, but I’m no longer surprised when I miss literally all of them.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
