What is failure after all?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, failure is “a situation in which someone or something does not succeed.” Based on this, this definition leads us to three conclusions:

✅ Failure can happen to anyone.

✅ ✅ Failure can happen to anything (not just a person)

And yet… Does failure depend entirely on… success?

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First, we must understand that “failure” (like any other word) is just that— a concept accepted and agreed upon by society to describe abstract feelings, situations, and events, based on definitions that constantly change in the context of time, culture, and society.

So, we can say that failure is relative. For some, it’s terrible—an epic mistake. But for others, it’s a way to start over. Some take failure seriously, while others take it in stride.

Setting aside these philosophical discussions of concepts created by humans… is it really true that failure is simply the absence of success?

As a global movement that has spent the last seven years specializing in failures and blunders, we can assure you that…not even we know! And we’re not sure if anyone will ever find out.

According to Scott Galloway, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, success equals resilience plus failure. This means that “the key to success lies in the ability to cry and move on.” Here we see a strong connection between failure and success, but with one important ingredient: resilience. With resilience, failure can lead to success… and vice versa.

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Failure, just like success, is a very fluid concept. It is relative and requires empathy to understand that it is human, and that it has consequences. The consequences of a “fuckup” are different for everyone, which is what makes it so difficult to define. Here are our notes: Failure is inevitable and universal. No one has ever managed to read and write efficiently on their first try. It doesn’t matter if the failure is a major setback or a minor stumble— sooner or later, you’ll fail again. Your parents, siblings, friends, and even (according to the Cambridge Dictionary) your washing machine have also failed.

No one gets away.

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Ironically, even though it happens every day, we’re still afraid of it. Failure is uncomfortable. It sucks! It pulls us out of our comfort zone, and we hope to get through each day without having to experience it. Sometimes we laugh at or feel sorry for people who have failed, while at the same time being grateful that it wasn’t us.

When we fail, we rarely reflect on it or try to learn from it. We prefer to forget about it and move on. We let it pile up, making the same mistakes over and over again.

Hiding our failures makes it impossible to have conversations that foster constructive feedback and self-understanding—the kind of conversations that help us grow and (as much as possible) avoid future screw-ups.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that sharing stories of failure creates a state of vulnerability. Listening to these stories triggers the release of cortisol and oxytocin in our brains, which allows us to connect and empathize in a vulnerable way with the people telling these stories. We need vulnerability to learn from our failures; this requires a personal effort to open up, show ourselves as we are, and, as we say at Fuckup Nights, laugh at our failures and share them with the world. We need to feel proud of our failures and lovingly help others overcome theirs.

The most important thing is to embrace vulnerability as we work through failure. Brené Brown explained in her book *Rising Strong* that “armoring ourselves” to avoid vulnerability is killing us: it’s killing our spirit, our hopes, our potential, our creativity, our ability to lead, our love, our faith, and our joy.

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Do you want your team to stay motivated by learning from everyday mistakes? As part of The Failure Program, we offer a variety of online courses, workshops, and private events, as well as a survey that will assess how your company is handling failure. Share your contact information with us, and let’s work together to make failure work for you.