After Failure

This story is about Diana Nyad, long distance swimmer. When she turned 60, she decided to attempt to swim from Havana to Cuba to Florida, a total of 177km. She tried to do this 4 times but had failed and she was determined to do it again.

This stretch of ocean that she wanted to cross was not going to be an easy one as it was home to rough waters, sharks and the poisonous box jellyfish – which she was her downfall during her 4th attempt where she got stung and had to stop her swim.

At 64 years old, Dian decided to make her 5th attempt, this time more prepared with a newly designed suit and mask to protect her from any jellyfish stings. She began her 5th attempt and swam. She swam for 53 hours through the night and in the day. She hallucinated and vomited and was delirious at some point. She had her team looking after her during her swim, keeping her safe and feeding her. On the 3rd day, while in a delirious state, shivering and even forgetting what she was doing, Diana looked up from her swim and in the distance and she saw lights. She thought that the sun was coming up and was delighted at the prospect of warmth but soon realized that the lights were actually the coast where she would be ending her swim! This realization spurred her on, she kept swimming and finally after 52 hours and 54 minutes, Diana arrived on shore, accomplishing her dream after 4 attempts and breaking a record.

"I've taken on those life lessons, that big break of just wanting the journey to be an elevated experience, no matter the success," she says. "Those people on the beach that day, they were crying. There were several thousand people. What they saw was a human being who had a dream and refused to give up on it. That's how simple the story is."

More about the story here: https://www.npr.org/2015/05/31/410855681/from-cuba-to-florida-diana-nyads-final-attempt-at-a-record-breaking-swim

Thomas Edison, the  American inventor, is thought of as being one of the most creative and intelligent men in history -  and yet, the history books tell us that he attended his school in Michigan for only three months before being expelled at the age of 12 because his teachers thought he was educationally subnormal. In later years, Edison was to become famous for his saying ‘genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration’.

This was certainly true for him in his attempts to convert electricity into light, one of his most famous endeavors. He was reputed to have tried and failed over 1,000 times to perfect the incandescent electronic light bulb, and when advised by his colleagues and friends to give up the whole project because it doomed to failure, replied with a total conviction and some surprise: “Why, I haven’t failed; I’ve just found a thousand ways in which my formula doesn’t work!’

It was as much Edison’s positive and tenacious attitude to endeavor and problem solving as his obvious intelligence and creativity that, in the end, were his most powerful allies.

Moral: There is no failure – only feedback!

Reflection: You can use this story to illustrate the need for creative and lateral thinking, and the need to view ‘failure’ as a natural part of the creative process. Beware of the dangers of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.

• What represents the ‘light bulb’ that are currently trying to invent?

• What different approaches have you used in order to solve the problem?

• What will be your motivation for continuing with this project?

• How did you perceive any failures that you have had in trying to solve the problem?

• How might you ‘reframe’ these failures Edison did?

• What projects have you given up because you thought you had failed? Could they be rekindled?

I’m sitting in a quiet room at the Milcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto. It’s just past noon, late July, and I’m listening to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away.

There’s a small fly burning out the last of its short life’s energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the windowpane. The whining wings tell the poignant story of the fly’s strategy: Try harder.

But it’s not working.

The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival. Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap. It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass. Nevertheless, this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination.

This fly is doomed. It will die there on the windowsill.

Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is there. It would be so easy.

Why doesn’t the fly try another approach, something dramatically different? How did it get so locked in on the idea that this particular route and determined effort offer the most promise for success? What logic is there in continuing until death to seek a breakthrough with more of the same?

No doubt this approach makes sense to the fly. Regrettably, it’s an idea that will kill.

Trying harder isn’t necessarily the solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. Sometimes, in fact, it’s a big part of the problem.

If you stake your hopes for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever, you may kill your chances for success.

-Price Pritchett

“Effort is a commitment to seeing a task through to the end, not just until you get tired of it.”

At ten minutes to seven on a dark, cool evening in Mexico City in 1968, John Stephen Arkwari of Tanzania painfully hobbled into the Olympic Stadium – the last to finish the marathon.

The winner had already been crowned, and the victory ceremony was long finished. So the stadium was almost empty as Arkwari, alone, his leg bloody and bandaged, struggled to circle the track to the finish line. The respected documentary filmmaker, Bud Greenspan, watched from a distance. Then, intrigued, Bud walked over to Arkwari and asked why he had continued the grueling struggle to the finish line.

The young man from Tanzania answered softly, “My country did not send me nine thousand miles to start the race. They sent me nine thousand miles to finish the race.”

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet.

He held up a sign which said “I am blind, please help.”

There were only a few coins in his hat.

A man walked by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.

He then took the sign, turned it around and wrote some words.

He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by will see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up.

A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.

That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognised his footsteps and asked “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

The man said “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.” What I had written was “Today is a BEAUTIFUL day and I cannot see it.”

Lesson 1: Be thankful for what you have. Someone else has less. Help where you can.

Lesson 2; Be CREATIVE, INNOVATIVE, THINK DIFFERENTLY. There is always a better way!

“In a small Italian town, hundreds of years ago, a small business owner owed a large sum of money to a loan-shark. The loan-shark was a very old, unattractive looking guy that just so happened to fancy the business owner’s daughter.

He decided to offer the businessman a deal that would completely wipe out the debt he owed him. However, the catch was that we would only wipe out the debt if he could marry the businessman’s daughter. Needless to say, this proposal was met with a look of disgust.

The loan-shark said that he would place two pebbles into a bag, one white and one black.

The daughter would then have to reach into the bag and pick out a pebble. If it was black, the debt would be wiped, but the loan-shark would then marry her. If it was white, the debt would also be wiped, but the daughter wouldn’t have to marry the loan-shark.

Standing on a pebble-strewn path in the businessman’s garden, the loan-shark bent over and picked up two pebbles. Whilst he was picking them up, the daughter noticed that he’d picked up two black pebbles  and placed them both into the bag.

He then asked the daughter to reach into the bag and pick one.

The daughter naturally had three choices as to what she could have done.

Refuse to pick a pebble from the bag.Take both pebbles out of the bag and expose the loan-shark for cheating.Pick a pebble from the bag fully well knowing it was black and sacrifice herself for her father’s freedom.

She drew out a pebble from the bag, and before looking at it ‘accidentally’ dropped it into the midst of the other pebbles. She said to the loan-shark;

‘Oh, how clumsy of me. Never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.’

The pebble left in the bag is obviously black, and seeing as the loan-shark didn’t want to be exposed, he had to play along as if the pebble the daughter dropped was white, and clear her father’s debt.”

It was the district track meet – the one we had been training for all season, My foot still hadn’t healed from an earlier injury. As a matter of fact I had debated whether or not I should attend the meet, But there I was, preparing for the 3200 meter run.

“Ready…set..” The gun popped and we were off. The other girls darted ahead of me. I realised I was limping and felt humiliated as I fell farther and farther behind.

The first –place runner was two laps ahead of me when she crossed the finish line. “Hooray!” shouted the crowd. It was the loudest cheer I had ever heard at a meet.

“Maybe I should quit,” I thought as I limped on. “Those people don’t want to wait for me to finish this race.” Somehow, though, I decided to keep going. During the last two laps, I ran in pain and decided not to compete in track next year. It wouldn’t be worth it, even if my foot did heal. I could never beat the girl who lapped me twice.

When I finished, I heard a cheer – just as enthusiastic as the one I’d heard when the first girl passed the finish line. “What was that all about?” I asked myself. I turned around and sure enough, the boys were preparing for their race. “That must be it; they’re cheering for the boys.” 

I went straight to the bathroom where a girl bumped into me. “Wow, you’ve got courage!” she told me.

I thought, “Courage? She must be mistaking me for someone else. I just lost a race!”

“I would have never been able to finish those two miles if I were you. I would have quit on the first lap. What happened to your foot? We were cheering for you. Did you hear us?”

I couldn’t believe it. A complete stranger had been cheering for me – not because she wanted me to win, but because she wanted me to keep going and not give up. Suddenly I regained hope. I decided to stick with track next year. One girl saved my dream.

That day I learned two things:

First, a little kindness and confidence in people can make a great difference to them.

And second, strength and courage aren’t always measured in medals and victories. They are measured in struggles we overcome. The strongest people are not always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.

I only dreamt that someday – perhaps as a senior – I will be able to win the race with a cheer as big as the one I got when I lost the race as a freshman.

-Ashley Hodgeson

When choosing the path to follow, I selected the road headed west.
It began in the Forest of Childhood, and ceased at the City of Success.

My bag was packed full of knowledge, but also some fears and some weights.
My most precious cargo was a vision of entering the city’s bright gates.

I reached an impassable river, and feared that my dream had been lost.
But I found a sharp rock, cut down a tree, and created a bridge, which I crossed.

It started to rain, and I was so cold, I shivered and started to doubt.
But I made an umbrella, cut some leaves and kept all the cold water out.

The journey took longer than I had planned; I had no food left in my dish.
Rather than starve before reaching my dream, I taught myself how to fish.

I grew awfully tired as I walked on and on, and I thought of the weights in my pack.
I tossed them aside, and I sped up again.
Fear was all that was holding me back.

I could see the City of Success, just beyond a small grove of trees.
At last, I thought, I have reached my goal!
The whole world will envy me!

I arrived at the city, but the gate was locked.
The man at the door frowned and hissed,
“You have wasted your time. I can’t let you in. Your name is not on my list.”

I cried and I screamed, I kicked and I shook;
I felt that my life had just ceased.
For the first time ever, I turned my head, and for once in my life faced the east.

I saw all the things I had done on my way, all the obstacles I’d overcome.
I couldn’t enter the city, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t won.

I had taught myself how to ford rivers, and how to stay dry in the rain.
I had learned how to keep my heart open, even if sometimes it lets in some pain.

I learned, facing backwards, that life meant more than just survival.
My success was in my journey, not in my arrival.

Nancy Hammel

As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

Recovery is about learning that you have a choice. You can choose to be hopeful rather than hopeless; you can choose to act from faith rather than react from fear; and you can choose to enjoy life rather than merely survive it.  

-Donna Newman

Recovery is sometimes a long road. But take heart and keep the faith. Know that at the end of the dark tunnel there is a light. The answer lies within you, in the spirit with which you brave the battle, the pain and suffering are not you, but only a part of you. 

 -Josie Willis 

Don’t ever let a failure stop you from getting up and moving forward toward success. What sets successful people apart from “quitters” is their willingness to use “failure” as important information. Edison gave words to this perspective after he had failed to invent the lightbulb after a thousand tries – and was therefore called a failure by one of his colleagues: “No, I have not failed,” Mr Edison countered., “I have discovered a thousand ways it will not work!” So when you bomb out on something, try to nail down the reason. For example, should you get a lower score on a test than you’d like, you might honestly say, “Okay, my not studying (or getting enough sleep, or eating a power breakfast – you fill in the blank!) didn’t work for me. Next time, I’d better…” Use all the facts – what works and what doesn’t work – as important information to move you toward your goals. Then get up and get going -success is waiting for you!

Think back on those times you bounced back from some tough break: Maybe a low grade in a class meant you were cut from a sports team. Though devastated, you decided you were going to turn things around. You worked really hard, brought up the grade and were back on the team the very next season. Recovering from a setback is in itself a victory – all the more rewarding since by its very nature it was hard won – but it is even more than a victory. It is a true measure of success. When you put your all into moving forward into recovering from setbacks, you show facets of your character that might not be revealed otherwise: determination, perseverance, courage, faith in your goals and confidence in yourself. Let setbacks be a measure of “real” success.