Being between jobs I have had some time to reflect on the fundamentals of what we call ‘growth’.  Growing your skills, growing your company, or growth of your muscular-skeletal structure…one thing they all have in common is the concept of ‘failure’.  This reflection comes at an essential time in my life because taking something to its ultimate limit and living on that edge is not something commonly practiced, and I needed to find this practice myself. 

Oprah Winfrey said, “Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.” – I bet you did not see that one coming.  But seriously before we start this exploration, I want to say that ‘growth’ is a game played when failure is not fatal or you get another try at it.  I want to clarify this because some folks will argue that injury or even death is a form of failure but that is not what I am here to explain.  I will touch on my own experience with fitness, musical skills, and technical leadership to explain what I mean by ‘go to failure’ as the core tenant to growth.  

Let us start with fitness because I just finished a hard workout and it is top of mind for me.  ‘Go to failure’ (training to failure), also known as ‘concentric failure’, is when you do reps of movement until you cannot do another one (no reps in reserve).  I have found it possible to push myself this way and put on at least a pound of lean muscle per week.  Failure here tells the body it must adapt and adapt it does.  Some of us can push ourselves to this point of failure, some will need a coach as it is more of a mental game here than physical.  In January, I turned 59 years of age, and I am in the best shape I have ever been in my life, thanks to failure. Do you want to grow your arms?… take them to failure, recover, and repeat.  

Another physical fitness example has to do with an endurance sport like cycling.  I’m not just talking about casually riding at a park, I am talking about long rides with hills – some of these hills will test ‘how badly you want it’.  Recently I challenged myself with a hill that was at an intimidating grade and about 1500 ft of ascension – I failed.  So, I trained and went to failure until I finally could do it (barely made it).    While still a mental game being played here, this is about endurance, which is different than the bodybuilding example above.  Here everything hurts, you are out of breath, all you need to do is stop pedaling for relief but you keep pushing.  If you have experienced this one, I should not have to explain.

As a former professional musician, I hated when people would tell me that I was born with this talent.  Anyone who has picked up a musical instrument knows failure and how to push through failure.  Churchill once said “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” and no one knows this better than the musician.   It was passion and enthusiasm that I would call upon when failure was beating me down.  Growth as a musician is like that of bodybuilding, do not practice playing the songs and melodies you play well, practice all the things you are terrible at and continue to go to failure.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ― Thomas A. Edison 

This brings me to my experience as a CTO and technical executive.  Those who have worked for me and with me know that I must first create an environment where failure is part of the process. Talent must be made to feel safe around failure, for without this, you will only achieve mediocrity, which is unacceptable.  Before you can push the company, or push the teams, you need to push yourself!  Push to failure to grow and innovate.  

Failure is part of my practice because in all things that I am about, growth is the game I am playing and passion fuels my desire to keep playing.   Keep pushing to failure and you will grow.