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On this episode let’s start with the following statement:

---- failure is for the privileged, so why is everyone worshiping failure?

As a new entrepreneur, I must’ve probably read close to 100 articles and various books on the concept of failure. And to be honest, I’m getting rather tired of praising failure as the way out and a reason to celebrate the lack of planning and true skills and experience.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not out to shame failure itself. Indeed I believe that failure is part of life. What I have a hard time with is when there is nonchalance about failure and when it is presented as a great learning almost done on purpose to meet expectations by society that only failure makes you better and ready for the next big thing. Especially in the business world when failure affects people around you either directly with your employees or indirectly with customers and vendors.

Let's think about that for a moment and compare the impact of a failure at a construction site with a tech company.

At a construction site, failure can literally cost a person’s life. However, whenever Elon Musk goes out, shredding everyone’s but his own money and continues to fail, we are losing it and celebrate this type of failure as a second coming.

Why is that? Why are we putting people like that up on a pedestal while at the same time knowing really well that failure and mistakes on any lower levels in the hierarchy will not reap applause but most likely the end of a career in a company.

Failure is an action, it comes with a or even many consequences – not just for the person failing but for everyone around that person. Knowing this impact, why would we be so oblivious to holding people accountable?

In Amazon’s 2019 shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos talks so much about failure -- arguing that to invent things like Echo and Alexa, you need the resources to be able to try and fail at big things.

Bingo – the secret sauce is the access to resources – the more you have the grander you may fail and the even greater the attention is.

And yes, it is not about dwelling on past failures but to get up and find a way forward quickly – but also not to celebrate failure as the holy grail and instead to admit failure, accept accountability and then do everything humanly possible to find a solution and turn that failure into success - not just for yourself but for everyone who stayed by your side throughout that journey or should I say rollercoaster!

It is also not about going to extremes, going from worship to zero tolerance. The magic lies in the nuance, not in the generalization.

Careless, ego-driven motives without personal liability vs. blood, sweat, tears with someone risking their personal stakes.

Let’s stop giving failure a celebrity status, I don’t care how many so-called inspirational leaders have proclaimed it as such and written 1001 books about it.

I know, I know it makes for a great hero and overcoming stories and tales – almost making us feel too average for a higher purpose if we haven’t hit rock bottom.

Anyways, let's look at how failure could be approached differently, especially for the sake of innovation.

Is the outcome the same? Yes, because something does not work as planned or expected. Will there be a different reaction to this outcome by making it part of the process and not declare it a miss? I believe that this could indeed be the case.

Why? In my opinion, it feels much more organic to make 'failure' a milestone early on in trialing, testing and prototyping a service, concept or product.

And to invest the time to talk through the action and the respective consequences – no