What is failure? Let’s see the dictionary explanation: 

1. An act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; 
2. Lack of success, nonperformance of something due, required, or expected;
3.  A subnormal quantity or quality, an insufficiency.

In all these three points you can read that failure is actually considered a lack of something. And it’s definitely how we perceive it: a situation both personally and professional that has not come to a perfect end, which has gone as we did not expect, an unsuccessful result, something not working as it should. Something missing. 

It seems that failure tends to be more public than success. Or at least that’s what we perceive it to be. We fret it, we try to avoid it, and we question ourselves every time we have unconventional ideas. But the simple truth is: no great success was ever achieved without failure. 

It may be one epic failure or a series of failures – such as Edison's 10,000 attempts to create a light bulb or Dyson’s 5,126 attempts to invent a bagless vacuum cleaner. But, whether we like it or not, failure is a necessary stepping stone to achieving our dreams.

Hooda Soodi, our evening’s speaker, brought us in a journey through failure and all the emotions and personal issues that people felt and lived because of a downfall. Hooda knows well this topic, as she is a successful Executive Coach. Lots of people, and let’s say all of us, one time experienced a breakdown and needed somehow an help or even a suggestion.

The secret is how we react to failure and how we regenerate from a downfall.

Minds are different and Hooda showed a scientific research that clearly demonstrate the existence of a division, a psychological difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each type of intelligence has its own features, words and specific ways to come out (ex: when an obstacle is the subject, a fixed mindset reacts by giving up immediately, on the other side a growth mindset acts by persisting in the face of setbacks).

A growth mindset tends to have a more positive approach to failure, a “never give up” tendence which, as a result, gives a greater sense of free will and a consequent higher level of achievement.

It’s clear how a positive approach has not only beneficial effects on our psychological balance but helps to improve the reaction against a failure.

The secret to let failure impacts less (or nothing, hopefully) on your resilience is to set up a growing move, a step forward approach which instead of push you to give up, could help you to see what you are missing and, by using a different strategy and view, to realize that “there is always a B plan”. 

So, this has been the take home of the evening. 

An inspiring night that actually gave lots of suggestions and which made people realize that downfalls are, even crucial and even painful somehow, stone steps of our lives. 

Stay tuned and let’s see at the next event!!

Do not miss it!

Text by Alissia Molteni