Why Failure Is Important

In a high school in North Carolina, a young man got cut from his basketball team. Determined to show the coaches he belonged, he played for the junior varsity team and averaged 40 points a game. Over the summer, he worked on his shooting and dribbling, and hit the gym constantly. When he returned next year, he had grown 4 inches. But something else had changed too.

Being cut had a huge impact on this young man. He learned about adversity and about coming back and training harder. He learned failure isn’t permanent and to be successful the first step is to try. Failure is going to happen.

He then went on to win a scholarship from North Carolina and was drafted third overall by the Chicago Bulls. He would win the NBA Rookie of the Award, 6 NBA Champions and 5 MVPs. His name was Michael Jordan.

Adversity and failure is sometimes what defines us. We have two choices: we can let the failure fester, let our self-esteem suffer; or we can do what Michael Jordan did and regroup and come back better than ever.

Blame It On a Newt

In 2011, Pixar had just released a string of hits, including WALL-E, Toy Story 3, and Finding Nemo, which became the highest grossing animated film ever, beating out the Lion King.

Things had never been better at Pixar, yet Edwin Catmull, the company’s president, didn’t want the studio to become complacent. He was scared that with the string of success, his company wasn’t pushing the envelope enough, both with technology and storytelling.

Gary Rydstrom pitched Pixar’s top brass a film about the last blue-footed newt in captivity. To save the species he is given a mate, however the two newts can’t stand each other.

It was the perfect, offbeat project that audiences everywhere have come to expect from Pixar.

John Lasseter and company were feeling particularly confident when they announced the release of the film in 2012 during a joint press conference with Disney.

Pixar decided they would develope Newt, as the film was called, separately from Pixar’s team which would allow fresh ideas to blossom – or so the thinking was at the time.

The director, Gary Rydstrom, had such a clear vision and enthusiasm that John Lasseter and Eward Catmull didn’t see any need to interfere. They even put the projection team in a separate campus away from Pixar’s main headquarters.

However things didn’t go as smoothly as planned and Rydstrom got in a rut and was unable to develop the story even after a Pixar team was sent over to salvage it.

After many years of development and millions of dollars spent, they finally canned the picture.

Although technically it was a failure, Pixar learned some valuable lessons that allowed them to improve their creative process.

They learned how to balance new ideas with old. They learned they needed to get buy-in from all of Pixar’s leadership. It also reaffirmed the creative process at Pixar. These experiments are what allow Pixar to grow as a company because without change there is no innovation.

Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

When I published my first book, I didn’t realize the publishing landscape had changed. I was still thinking that old marketing techniques would work so I went on book tours, did book readings, took out advertisements in magazines, and hired a publicist for several thousand dollars a week.

The book sold well—over 10,000 copies – but I poured all those profits back into unnecessary marketing expenses.

I failed to see how authors become bestsellers today: by blogging, podcasting and using other content marketing techniques. I failed to see how the internet changed everything and still continues to change. I failed to see that the best way to market is to serve people and offer something of value.

But if I hadn’t poured all that money into old-school marketing then I wouldn’t have learned how to take control of my own destiny. I wouldn’t have learned that if you’re going to push the envelop and continue success that failure is part of the course.

As Michael Jordan puts it, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost more than 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted with the winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Joel Mark Harris is a Canadian writer, producer and journalist. (@joelmarkharris) He is the proud founder of Scene2Studio and you can download for FREE his award-winning thriller novel A Thousand Bayonets HERE

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