Failure May Never Be "Accepted"

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3 points·vijayanands··2 comments

It depends on what is meant by "failure" and by "acceptance".

I guess some people need simplistic slogans/mantras to get motivated. At one start-up I worked in, the founder frequently ended his emails with the phrase "Failure is NOT an option!" Well, obviously, it was "an option" because that is exactly what happened to the start-up (if you define "failure" as no longer existing). On the other hand, everyone had a great time, learned a lot, and are or will use the experience of "the failure" to succeed in another context in the future.

I generally don't have a problem with such slogans-- whatever floats your boat is fine for me. But for heaven's sake, please don't put it on a T-shirt and expect your employees to wear it proudly, it is embarrassing to folks who take a pragmatic point of view.

Hehe, I can empathize with you. And Yep Failure is very much an option - most of the time it is the startup that fails, not the founder, not the team. But yet, more than anymore its those two sets of people who take it the hardest. That was the context.

My mentor used to remind me often that we are the final product, and that "phase" when we are building a startup is all towards enabling the product (aka us) to grow a skillset - or a new feature, if you'd call it that.

I worry when entrepreneurs and visionaries anticipate and call for a world that would embrace failure. I have no idea what that means, but failure - on a personal level - to accomplish that set task in a phase in a life, still would hurt, if not anything, just for the mere sake of the confidence and drive we put into it.

But every entrepreneur worth his or her salt will survive it.

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