What is the one thing you fear most in school? A failing grade. But what is the one thing that the world’s greatest inventors, entrepreneurs, athletes, and superstars say is integral to their achievements in life? Failure. When it comes to business, sports, art, or life in general, failure is something to be embraced, yet our school system at all levels stigmatizes failure as the worst possible outcome.
Throughout your education, you are taught that a failing grade is something to be ashamed of. You have displayed that you are inept and unintelligent when it comes to the subject matter. If this were not bad enough, you are not given a chance to redo the assignment or course. You are stuck with that failing grade — forever pulling down your GPA. In other words, one failure causes permanent and disastrous consequences for the rest of your endeavours, while also undercutting your achievement in other areas. Under the current school system, that failing grade is a black mark on your academic record that cannot be expunged. Failure is then something to be avoided at all costs.
But this is completely the opposite in the real world. You can fail, sure, but your failure is not something you have to drag around with you. You can rewrite the bar, your business can go bankrupt, you can lose a game, or not get a part in a play, but none of these things will affect the overall success of your life. You will always be able to pick up and move on from them.
Would it surprise you to learn that Henry Ford had two failed companies — the Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company — before he finally founded the successful Ford Motor Company and revolutionized manufacturing? Ford’s first job was as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company, owned by the very Edison who revolutionized daily life with his invention of the light bulb. But prior to this, Edison developed a number of failed light bulb prototypes. He is rumoured to have said, “I have not failed 10,000 times, rather, I have found 10000 ways not to make a light bulb.” Whether or not these were his exact words, it is completely accurate. In real life, failures are something to be learned from in order to achieve greater success.
It may seem odd to include as an example of failure someone who was a seven-time Mr. Olympia winner, a millionaire by the age of 30, a film star whose films grossed over a billion dollars in the 1980s alone, and was elected Governor of the most populous state in the U.S., yet, as Arnold Schwarzenegger has openly admitted, his entire life has been about failure. Schwarzenegger’s training in order to become the world’s greatest bodybuilder required him to push his body to its limits. He would not stop until his body failed him and prevented the training from continuing. This idea has framed the rest of his life. In business ventures, acting, politics, or any other endeavour, Schwarzenegger embraces failure because he understands that without pursuing your breaking point, you will never be aware of just how much you can actually achieve.
Apple founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, was seen as one of the most innovative thinkers and business leaders in his field. However, few people remember that in 1985, Jobs was fired from Apple for his outlandish and expensive ideas. Upon leaving, he founded NeXT Computer, a company the average person may have never heard of. In 1986, Jobs bought the struggling company Pixar and turned it into the animated film giant it is today. It was not until 1996 that Jobs was brought back into Apple’s fold, but once it was done, he transformed the way we look at technology. None of this may have happened — the iPhone, Toy Story, iTunes — had it not been for Jobs’s initial failure and his insistence on pursuing new challenges.
By stigmatizing failure in schools, by presenting it as the absolute worst possible outcome, something to be ashamed of and worn as a mark of ineptitude for the rest of one’s academic life, our society has enforced the belief in most people that it is better not to try than to try and fail. Achievements are made only by those who refuse to accept this notion and view failure as an outcome almost more desirable than success — as something that holds invaluable lessons from which to learn.
The advancement of society is driven by these achievements, without which we would collapse. When schools enforce a fear of failure, it leads our society down the road to ruin. Hopefully, we can all learn from our education system’s failure.
