Because I failed ....

Category: Editorial

From visiting editorial writer Andrew Halfacre.

I have been musing on a favourite quote of mine from Tony Robbins

"Success comes from good judgement

Good judgement comes from experience

And experience, often, comes from bad judgement!"

Because I failed my driving test the first time I found the determination to do it right and the fixed determination to pass both my HGV and Motorcycle tests the first time. Because I have failed to listen well, I now listen much better than average, because I have lost sales before, I now sell with more skill, because I have failed to build rapport when I needed it, I went and learned how to do it better, because...

Failure is not very popular in our culture and I fear that by not letting our children fail at anything we will, by the law of unintended consequences, create a situation where they cannot have good judgement. All we do by not letting them fail is postpone their growth. Why? Because good judgement comes from experience...

Even the coaching world with its emphasis on setting a goal and going for it can be guilty of ignoring the contribution of failure. Why not find some space this week to glory in all the things you have failed to be, failed to do and failed to have...but...have brought you good judgement and are responsible for your current success. Because, after all, the only real failure is the failure to learn from your experience.

Andrew Halfacre is an associate of Brefi Group and founder of Lighthouse 365.