Failure
Have you ever heard of a failure résumé? Reflecting your failures can remind you of how they’ve made you stronger. You’ve tried, failed, gotten back up again, and learned from your mistakes.
As a leader, delineating your past failures can also be a powerful way to assure your team that it’s okay to take risks and innovate. After all, if you treat everything like it's precious, you will never have any breakthroughs.
That’s why I promote writing such résumés in the "Innovative Thinking" course I teach for grad students at the University of Maryland.
Here are some highlights from mine.
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I was fired from my first post-college job. My boss and I were working late, and he mentioned he was sleepy. I offered that I had a secret trick up my sleeve. Shoulder-punching had been a technique I’d employed with a road-tripping friend to stave off drowsiness. I genuinely didn’t perceive it as violent in the slightest. Big mistake.
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When I volunteered to organize a conference for biodiesel enthusiasts in 2008, I significantly overspent on space that should’ve been free. I ignored the problem, figuring we could sort it out with the location afterwards. Nope.
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In 2013, I started Dioramalove, a company that turned photos into shoebox dioramas. I paid someone to build me a website, bought ads on Google, and pitched the idea to anyone who would listen. Fifteen people told me they’d be my first client. One single customer showed up. I folded a month after launching, grateful that I knew when to walk away.
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I self-published a coffeetable book of stories about the strangers I'd written poems for in front of the National Gallery of Art, calling it Portraits of the Poemed. After reading lengthy how-tos on getting published, I challenged myself to submit it to 50 publishing houses and literary agents. Most didn’t bother to respond. Twelve of them acknowledged me with form-letter “Uh-uhs.” None picked it up. One gave me this sage advice: “You’re nobody. If you want to sell a book on the mass market, come back when you have 100,000 followers.”
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An illustrator friend in Germany offered to help me with visual design for Stiktionary, a game I'd invented, in exchange for a share of any eventual royalties. We debuted it at a conference. Four big game companies were interested, and I saw dollar signs. Despite our shared agreement to go for glory and not for riches, I felt like I'd done more than the 60% of the work that our split specified, and I tried to renegotiate. My friend was pissed. He demanded immediate payment for his work, at market rates. The vibe was killed, and I was out thousands of dollars (and a valued friendship). It wasn't until months later that my friend and I were able to talk through the disagreement and reconcile.
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The first recording of my 2022 TEDx talk was a complete flop. I mean, dang. Presenting in the studio without my slide deck for visual cues threw me way off, and I really blew it. I summoned all my humility and asked if I could try again the next day. I’m so glad I did! With my slides printed out and taped to the wall next to the video camera, I nailed it. Watch my eyes about halfway through and you'll see me looking up and to the left, as if to an audience in the balcony. I'm actually facing a blank wall and a column of 8.5x11s with my next image at the top of it.
[An abridged version of this piece originally appeared in Phrantone 09-2023, the February 2023 issue of my real-mail newsletter.]