I put this video together with Larissa Rhodes and Mark Crawford in an effort to raise awareness and funds for Hindsight some time back. At the moment I am NOT looking for funding, so please disregard my half-ass attempt at proving “monetary profit” here. Perhaps focus a bit more on the personal insights and musings into failures and share your perceptions of failure below as well.

I recently gave a TED talk about failure to students in a popular engineering university in India. It was really incredible to hear how receptive while at the same time apprehensive they were to the message. I challenged them to fail once a day for the next 7 days at something they’ve only dreamt about until now. I even told them to post, tweet, take photos, and to tell their failure story. That their success story is way less compelling than their failure story. But it needs to be written and told out loud.

A student approached me with the question: “Maam, if I fail at something in my studies and then I cant accomplish my dream of becoming a great engineer, then what will I do?” So I told him that failure isn’t limited to your studies. There are other options out there: ask a girl out on a date that you thought you never could, make a dish that seemed impossible to replicate, try a crazy sport that you didn’t think you were strong enough for. And if you succeed, try something harder. It only counts if you fail. And it only counts if you get back up and try again.

They have not got the video up yet, but here’s what one audience member wrote about my talk and also the video from my previous talk on failure as well given in SF:

I’ve highlighted some poignant quotes from the April HBR, I highly recommend you head out and purchase a copy today. Or, if your Borders Book Store looks like a depressing garage sale, ask me, and I will send you a copy. Huge applause goes out to Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius for spearheading this movement to redefine failure in our society.

“Failure. We’re hypocrites about it. Go online, and you’ll find scores of pleasant aphorisms celebrating the inevitability of failure and the importance of learning from it. But in real life- and in real companies- failure is anathema. We’re afraid of it. We avoid it. We penalize it.”

“People say that success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan. Not in this case, however.“

“One mantra of modern business is that nothing is a better teacher than failure. For some entrepreneurs, it’s virtually a badge of honor to have stumbled, even spectacularly, on the way to success. Most of us, however, find it hard to draw useful lessons from our missteps. We tend to fail at failure.”

“Failure and fault are virtually inseparable in most households, organizations, and cultures. Every child learns at some point that admitting failure means taking the blame. That is why so few organizations have shifted to a culture of psychological safety in which the rewards of leaning from failure can be fully realized.”

“Obviously, not all failures are useful, and even some that we could learn from should be avoided at all costs. But if you accept that failures will sometimes occur in uncertain environments, it makes sense to plan for, manage, and learn from then- and in many cases to consider them experiments rather than failures.”

“Failure is one of  life’s most common traumas, yet people’s responses to it vary widely. Some bounce back after a brief period of malaise; others descend into depression and a paralyzing fear of failure.”

What about the middle ground? Where are the people who give themselves a mourning period in which to discuss the odds, the realizations, and then share them with the world to allow all of us to share in that growth and learning?

It is absolutely beautiful to observe Honda admit to failure in such a raw, honest, open way. And such awesome cinematography as well. Incredible. The most fascinating part is that its headquarters are in a continent that most people assume to be risk averse and failure admitting averse. Either they’ve created a unique and incredible atmosphere within their organization that battles stereotypes, one in which failure is embraced and learned from, or the culture as a whole is one that has truly transcended the rest of society in their ability to learn from what went wrong. Either way, what they’ve done, their humility and confidence in putting themselves out there for the world to see them, naked, is amazing. Let’s follow suit.

I guess the biggest lessons are:

• Prepare for the dip. Starting a business is far easier than making it successful. You need to see a path and have the resources to get through it.
• Cliff businesses are glamorous but dangerous.
• Projects exist in an eco-system. Who are the other players? How do you fit in?
• Being the dumbest partner in a room of smart people is exactly where you want to be.
• And the biggest of all: persist. Do the next one.

I got one of these today from a great friend, and although I am still rather unclear as to what she is proposing, it made my mouth drop open and my heart jump at all the directions we could take this in.

I proceeded to receive a voicemail that was also a simple one liner: “Listen, I’ve got a GREAT deal for you. Call me back.” And so I did. And again, my mouth dropped and my heart jumped. There’s something about having absolutely no idea what someone is going to pitch you on but hearing the immediacy and excitement to such an extent that nothing more than one line could really get the point across any more succinctly.

I often see emails lately where people’s signatures say:

And I think, OK COME ON! You really never have to be more verbose than 3 lines!? But it’s possible! And it’s beautiful.

Besides, anything that needs to be said in more than 1 or 3 lines should probably be said using our real live voices, filled with all the energy and optimism and beauty they come with. There is something to be said about a life that is lived in the happy medium between humans and computers.

We took off on the roller-coaster ride with a simple question: “Would you speak at a FAIL conference, exposing your own failures worth sharing and learning from?” thrown out to a small group of 500 friends of Rafe Furst.

Within 2 weeks, there were 91 comments, over 50 people asking me when and where and what and how can I get involved or help you. Numerous crazy connections to people who are the flame bearers of failure with no reason to believe in me aside from the fact that they believed I had discovered the next best thing since sliced bread. There were “likes” left and right from people I had never heard of- people without any reason to blow hot air up my rear end- people who truly wanted to see this come to life. And that’s where it all began.

Ok, that’s not where it actually began, but I will tell that story another evening.

I connected to TED speakers, authors of Failure and Wrongoloy, investors with miles and miles of failed investments behind them, and most of all, failures. I connected to people who came forth with their failures, shared their deepest darkest secrets of painful memories swept under the rug from years past, and felt safe and calm and humble enough to embrace their misstep and let the relief of voicing it wash over them. They let the idea of broadcasting these challenges to the world sweep them off their feet. They grasped the potential for their voice and pain and struggle to help lift up someone else. Some one who has stepped into their large shoes in an attempt to solve the age old question of: How can I make the world a better place?

What’s fascinating to me in establishing a company is how simple it is: answer a few questions, throw a small sum of money at the state, and Presto Changeo: you are a CEO! I feel like I’m missing the suit and champagne and hangover that goes along with this.

Granted, the next steps are the hard ones, but at least I know for almost nothing I could start over again, tell the world about the company I started that focussed on failures, and somehow, also failed, and how I’ve now got even more failures to talk about! Awesome.