"Never underestimate the magical properties of failure. It rewires the brain and gets the creative juices flowing."
This quote caught my attention in an article I found in a recent edition of Psychology Today. The reason: I have lived that statement in so many ways. People who know me might not even know this, I tend to forget my failures from time to time, but I failed a lot.
When I was in the 4th grade, I was a miserably poor reader, and was put in the lowest of the 3 reading groups. I was too active to sit still long enough to read, however, my 4th grade teacher saw something in me that led her to believe I could read better. She took the time after school, for what seemed like months on end, to get me up to speed.
When I graduated from high school, I had a 2.6 GPA, which continues to be embarrassing to admit. I eventually managed to set my sights on greater things. However, I had to spend the first two years in a mediocre college achieving a 3.8GPA to qualify for a more prestigious college.
Then, after being rejected in my application to graduate school, I found out, through some investigation, that I had been considered "on the bubble" for admissions due to stiff competition among the other applicants. So I convinced the person in charge of the committee for admissions to the Psych program to an agreement: Admit me in as a provisional candidate, and, if I achieve less than a 3.8 GPA in the first quarter of school, then they can let me go. Conversely, if I achieve that GPA or more and am viewed by the professors as a valued student, then I'll be accepted to the program. I made the GPA and was voted as student representative to attend faculty meetings.
Those types of initially frustrating experiences have tended to follow me around in life. My hunch is, that if most of you who have been marginally successful think about it, you can come up with similar stories and events in your own life.
But what’s happening in our brains as these experiences occur that seem to lead, eventually for some, to success? Here is one explanation:
"With success, people keep on doing the same thing. When they fail, they are forced to adapt and change. That is not just a human characteristic but constitutes a basic feature of how the mammalian brain works.
If a lab rat no longer gets rewarded for pressing a lever that had yielded food pellets before, it gets visibly upset. As its frantic efforts fail, it resorts to all manner of strange, or novel, reactions; from grooming itself to biting the lever, or leaping into the air. It is learning that the world has changed and its brain is getting rewired, so to speak. When one combines emotionalism with originality, that is fairly close to what most people think of as artistic creativity. Artists are not necessarily frustrated people but tend to be dissatisfied with what they have accomplished previously and try to do something better, or something new."
How do you handle failure? And…How do you view and treat others who fail?
The answers to those key questions may be two of the most important differentiators between the best leaders and the worst. Don't get stuck hiring only people who have succeeded recently. Many of those who have failed recently may have the best success tomorrow. (With the exception of people who fail at moral and character failure- we have to be more careful here).
Question: Do you have a failure in your life that later contributed to your success? Share your story—we’d enjoy hearing your experiences.
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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.
