It's been a pleasure to collaborate with my grandson, Josh Toyer (linkedin.com/in/joshua-t-toyer-81b24a276), over the past few months. As he nears graduation from Cedarville University, Josh has been freelancing for me, creating content on the subject of failure. Some of you may recall that before founding IndyGrit.Community, I served as the Chief Mentor in Residence for The Failure Institute, where I developed a keen interest in this topic. Josh's unique insights have been invaluable, and I've invited him to author a series of posts to pique your curiosity. Here's the first one for your reading pleasure.
My point of view on failure has been challenged by Amy Edmondson’s book Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (Edmondson, A. (2023) Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, New York, NY: Atria Books). Let’s face it: None of us likes to fail. But it’s a fact of life that failure does occur, and learning to fail well is an important lesson to learn as early as you can. Accomplishing anything of significance requires accepting the associated risk and being open to the possibility of failure. But if you’re a perfectionist like me, that fact can discourage you. If you are like me, you take failure personally; you believe that just because you failed, you are a failure. And that is simply not true. I have learned that just because you fail, that does not mean that you are a failure. I want to share what I have learned with you to give you a bit more confidence in yourself and introduce you to the concept of failing well. I’ll do that over the next few weeks, so check back for my next installment. In the meantime, remember that “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.”~Eloise Ristad