According to Cambridge Dictionary, failure is "a situation in which someone or something does not succeed." Based on this, this definition leaves us with three conclusions:

✅ Failure can happen to anyone.

✅ ✅ Failure can happen to something (not just a person).

unay ... Failure depends strictly on ... success?

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First, we must understand that "failure" (as well as any other word), is just that... a concept accepted and agreed upon by the social imaginary 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 is a terrible, epic mistake. But for others it is a way to start from scratch. Some take failure seriously, while others take failure in stride.

Putting aside these philosophical discussions of human-created concepts... is it true that failure is only the lack of success?

As a global movement that has been specializing in failures and screw-ups for 7 years, we can assure you that...even we don't know! And we're not sure if anyone ever will.

According to Scott Galloway, a professor at New York's Stern School of Business, success equals resilience + failure. So this means that "the key to success lies in the ability to grieve and move on." Here we see a strong relationship between failure and success, but with an important ingredient: Resilience. With resilience, failure can lead to success... and vice-versa.

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Failure, like success, is a very fluid concept. It is relative and requires empathy to understand that it is human, and that it carries 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 succeeded in reading and writing efficiently on their first attempt. It doesn't matter if the failure is a big one or a small stumble, sooner or later you will fail again . Your parents, siblings, friends and even (according to Cambrigde's dictionary) your washing machine have failed too.

No one escapes.

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Ironically, even though it happens every day in the world, we are still afraid of it. Failure is uncomfortable - it sucks. It takes us out of our comfort zone and we expect days to pass without having to experience it. Sometimes we laugh or feel sorry for people who have failed, while being thankful it wasn't us.

When failure occurs, we rarely inquire or try to learn from it. We prefer to forget, and move on. We let it build up, making the same mistakes over and over again.

Hiding failures makes it impossible to have conversations that encourage nurturing feedback and self-understanding, those conversations that help us grow, and (as much as possible) avoid future fuckups.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has proven that sharing stories of failure generates a state of vulnerability. Listening to these stories produces cortisol and oxytocin in our brain and that allows us to connect and empathize in a vulnerable way with the people who tell these stories. We need vulnerability to learn from our failures, this requires a personal effort to open up, to show ourselves as we are and, as we say in Fuckup Nights, to laugh at our failures and share them with the world. Be proud of our failures, and help others with love to overcome theirs.

The most important thing is to find vulnerability in the process of overcoming failure. Brené Brown explained in her book "Rising Strong" that "armoring" to avoid vulnerability is killing us: Killing our spirit, our hopes, our potential, creativity, leadership capacity, our love, faith and joy.

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Do you want your team to be motivated by day-to-day mistakes? As part of The Failure Program, we have a variety of online courses, workshops and private events, plus a survey that will diagnose how you are managing failure in your company. Leave us your details and let's start collaborating to make failure work for you.