Failure Is Not an Option

Marcia LaReau

Do you remember the mission of Apollo 13? Perhaps you remember the movie: three astronauts in space without an oxygen supply? Everything that could go wrong did. The ground crew had only a few hours to find solutions that no one had ever imagined—at a time when they still used slide rules, pencils and paper. They made up their minds they were going to succeed—and they did!

This scene reminds me of our current economic situation. It reminds me of the situation that most job seekers are facing. We never imagined we would be here. We are immersed in one of the worst national failures in our history. It’s time to study failure and find solutions.


Why study failure?
Tim Harford, in his book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, writes, “Few of our own failures are fatal.” ...but most of us don’t act like it. Instead, we treat failure as if it is the end. It’s the last word. We are done, finished, broken, and ruined.

The critical ingredient:

John C. Maxwell pondered the question, “If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?” He then backtracks to say, “That’s a bad question because, There is no achievement without failure."

Catch this article on Bloomberg Businessweek: How Failure Breeds Success. In the article, Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, E. Neville Isdell encourages us to accept failure as a part of the regeneration process as we take more risks. The Businesspundit notes that Success Depends on your Response to Failure.

In less than a quarter of a second, an Internet search can pull 115,000,000 articles on how to benefit from failure. So this isn’t new. Failure and success are related. It's a critical concept and one that we need at this time in our history.

It takes courage to confront fear, pain, danger, and uncertainty. Failure encompasses all of these.

We can succeed:
We can succeed if we embrace a spirit of discovery, ingenuity, and risk, with a faith that together we can find solutions. We can succeed because together, we can muster the courage to face our challenges differently. We can succeed because we can develop relationships that will give us the strength to overcome our fears and recapture the ingenuity to find viable solutions.

Actions that define failure:
An inability to identify failure as the forerunner of success.
Choosing not to exercise the privilege of voting in an election.
Choosing to give up rather than learning, regrouping, and trying again.
Thinking that success is achieved in a vacuum.

Call to success:
It starts with every individual. Everyone has a challenge they are facing:
Choose not to be a victim.
Embrace an attitude of discovery.
Embrace courage, conquer fear and become the solution.
Celebrate success.
It is time to commit ourselves to the idea that “Failure is NOT an option.” It is time to choose to believe there are answers and every one of us plays a critical role as we secure our future.

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