Failure

There was a human interest piece at the end of  the 6:30 news that totally rocks my world.  Diane Sawyer was interviewing Sara Blakely,  the inventor of Spanx, who is now a very successful billionaire entrepreneur.

Blakely told how her father would ask his children at the dinner table each night:  "What did you fail at today?"  One might report trying out for a sport and being terrible at it.  And their father would give them a big high five. This astonishes me, and is such a marvelous twist, such a healthy attitude, such a revolutionary approach;  I wish I had thought of that!

Rather than always striving for success,  Blakely's method of operation is to look for the gift in failure.  She says that every failure has a gift.

Failure is not something I was ever comfortable with.  Oh,  I certainly had my share of encounters with failure,  and those really shaped me, to make sure I did not repeat the mistakes.   Failure was more likely to make me feel shame or embarrassment.

I will say that fear of failure was never something that kept me from taking risks, trying something new or different, stepping up, stepping out.  But the experience of failure was always a very excruciatingly painful.


Oh, how I wish I had learned early on that in fact,  failure is really to be celebrated and embraced.

Of course, it is never too late to learn something life-changing.   Next time I fail,  I'll be much less likely to feel humiliated.   I'll just high five myself and receive the gift!