Plan to fail and you'll do just that
And why most generic advice is meant to sound good, not be good
Today’s brain energy booster is a bit improvised and some of you might know it as it’s commonly illustrated in the business world:
Sometime in the 1950s, a company is trying to increase the sales of its toothpaste. An employee comes up with an idea that costs virtually nothing to implement and results in an astonishing 40% increase in sales. What was the idea?
Answer, at the end. If you were forwarded this email, subscribe here so you can be the one annoying your friends with lateral thinking.
Failure is part of the process…
… if that’s your process. However, you’ll hear “plan to fail” out of the mouths of almost every motivational coach. It’s endearing and, of course, motivational.
Talking about how failing has helped you once you’ve succeeded is a great way to get the popular opinion on your side.
But each of us have a different relationship with failure. The reality is some strive in failure and find motivation in it. Others freeze when faced with it. Most freeze, if we’re being honest.
Just because the stories we grew up with glorify standing up in the face of failure and making a glorious comeback does not mean that happens often.
In action movies, the good guy gets beaten to a pulp and then somehow finds his inner strength and wins the fight. In actual combat sports, the guy getting beaten up in the beginning of the fight loses 99.9% of the time.
It’s basically availability bias applied on storytelling.
Because we don’t want the stories of pure failures. We want the stories of disguised failure.
Nobody talks about the people who tried to built a business, failed and then went back to working a 9 to 5 because it suit them better.
Instead, we talk about the people who failed, hit rock bottom then bounced back and reached new heights. That’s inspirational.
In reality, almost half of businesses fail in the first 5 year. Even more if we narrow that down to startups (the agreed upon failure percentage is 90% there).
There’s no great success comeback story in +90% of these cases. No great “Eureka!” moment that makes it into a documentary someday.
Just plain, normal, uninspiring failure. And that’s fine.
So don’t plan to fail, because you’re very likely to succeed. And there’s a high chance you’re not going to start hearing “Eye of The Tiger” and make an amazing comeback.
Answer: they made the hole bigger.