Don’t fight failure — it is your friend

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The number one thing that irks me about the education system is it encourages us to be afraid of the one thing we’re constantly going to do as human beings. And that is to fail. 

I want to release you now if you’re a self-proclaimed perfectionist or a people pleaser — you are going to fail, repeatedly. You are going to fail when you’ve done your best, you’re going to fail when you have a fool-proof plan, you’re even going to fail when you’ve prayed all the prayers and burnt all the incense to align your chakras. You are going to fail. 

I’m not saying this to alarm you, I’m just hoping we can start off honest so we’re not BSing each other. If you’ve tried anything in life, and not failed, get in touch with me immediately, I want to attend your TED Talk. 

School teaches you to be afraid of something that is the third-most guaranteed thing to happen to you in life after 1) death and 2) change. Is there anything more futile than being fearful of something that is guaranteed to happen?

We have school kids taking their own lives because they failed matric. We ridicule pupils who repeat a class as if failing is not helpful to their growth. We’re so gleeful about shame that we print the names of the students who passed so those who didn’t are easily identifiable. 

The day my matric results came out, I woke up before everyone at home. I was sick with worry. It was a rainy day in 1997; my favourite rapper had been killed that year and I wasn’t sure I could survive another loss. (I was a dramatic teenager. God bless my mother!) 

I remember that day so vividly because it is in the top five best days of my life because it is the one and only day my father showed me a public display of affection — he kissed me on the cheek when he saw my name with exemptions on the paper. 

I have spent my entire life chasing that feeling of being enough and running away from failure like my life depended on it. But I had no idea how many devastating failures were still coming, some around the corner like the thugs who took Doctor Khumalo’s shoes eOrlando. But wins that come as a result of failure have shot the light fantastic, let me tell you. 

Failure is not something we should be afraid of; failure is your friend. No, this is not one of those Jedi-mind-trick-you quips. I mean it. Failure is your friend. I do not know of a single successful person who hasn’t failed. Some more spectacularly than others. 

Even the fiercest, most consistent and celebrated winners will eventually lose. We all desperately wanted Serena Williams to finish her tenure as the GOAT in tennis with a record but, had she continued to play, she’d be doing it to people please, not because she needs to prove anything. What’s to prove? Her record will be remembered long after she’s gone. She’s the greatest of all time. Full stop. 

Failing doesn’t mean the end of you, if anything, failure is the start of you being the biggest, best and sharpest version of yourself. Steve Jobs went through so many dud inventions that, by the time he got to the iPod, there was no doubt he was not only right when he said “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them” but he had finally stumbled on something of historical significance by way of technology. 

If he had stopped at the fifth failed product, we still would probably be running around airports and campuses with CDs and Walkmans. One of my favourite quotes of all time is when Jay-Z said: “The genius thing we did is that we didn’t give up.”

I speak about failure because I watched The Redeem Team and saw how powerful failing with people who want to win with you can be. Being surrounded by people who believe in you and the shared dream, especially when there’s little evidence of victory, can change history. People who will fail forward with you are the people you want with you when you’re losing because the wins will be so much sweeter. 

Because, as the kids say, life has hands. Life will grab you by your shirt and shake you down till you surrender. The story of the Gucci dynasty is another example of how failure can propel you, give you the elasticity to rethink your strategy and how a setback can be a setup for a comeback. 

This year marks 28 years since the Rwanda genocide where almost a million people lost their lives in the space of two months. Now, the last Saturday of every month, called Umuganda, is dedicated to mandatory nationwide community work from 8am to 11am. 

Sometimes failing yourself can be the accountability you need to change and move forward. Often, out of great failure can come great victory. So, the next time you fail at something, the next time you want to be sad about a loss, remember that failure is your friend. Embrace it, welcome it, but crucially, learn from it. Fail forward.