How did I transform my relationship with failure?

For me it was martial arts, failure is baked into it. There’s a saying that “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” You’re expected to fail over and over and over again until you finally succeed. Your teachers are there to guide you with a mix of encouragement and push, helping you go beyond what you think is possible. Plus, a good dose of humor helps, too. I learned to accept failure as part of the process, eventually earning my black belt—a good lesson in resilience for my ADHD mind which carried over into my everyday life.

There has been a trend in the martial arts toward “play sparring” without keeping score because it encourages people to take chances and learn. Conversely, when score is kept, people tend to play it safe because they want to win, and they don’t actually learn as much. In actual competition, ironically, those who play-sparred tend to win more because they’ve expanded their toolkit through experimentation.

This approach is also a valuable leadership tool. Just as my Senseis created a safe place for me to fail, when I owned my restaurant with my husband we created a safe place for our staff to fail. All food and drinks going out to guests had to be perfect of course, but behind the scenes we encouraged our culinary team to experiment.

Here are some steps you can take:

1.      Redefine Success with the Team: Make it clear that success includes experimenting. Failure is simply the process of discovering ways that don’t work—each misstep brings us closer to what does.

2.      Hold a Learning Debrief: After experimentation, reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Keep it focused on insights and on next steps to normalize failure as part of growth.

3.      Celebrate Effort and Learning: Recognize risk taking. When innovation is valued, people feel encouraged to expand their skills.

What about you? Have you ever experienced growth through failure? How have you created safe places for people to fail to encourage innovation? I would love to hear your insights.