When I was younger, I remember certain days when my mother, who is a scientist at a university in Italy, would come home late from work and embrace me with a big smile on her face. It was clear that she was very excited and happy, not just to see me, but also about how her day at work had gone. That's when I would also get excited, imagining myself as the son of a Nobel Prize winner, and I would ask her, "Mom, what did you discover?" And she would look at me in surprise, saying, "What do you mean, Andrea? I didn't discover anything."
That's when I would get frustrated and respond without understanding, "What do you mean, Mom? You came back excited from work, and if your job is to discover things, how do you consider a good day at work if you didn't discover anything?"
The answer she gave me still echoes in my head today, teaching me that in life and in business, not all mistakes are bad, but there is a certain category of mistakes that can be considered good. She would reply, "It's because today I was able to conduct many experiments, and even if they all failed, I learned a lot of new things and I am getting closer to making a new discovery."
Alex Banayan is the youngest business author to become a best-seller in American history. 'The Third Door' recounts Banayan's seven-year quest to uncover the ultimate mindset for exponential growth and success by interviewing the most innovative leaders of the last half-century, including Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Larry King, Maya Angelou, Steve Wozniak, Jane Goodall, Jessica Alba, Quincy Jones, and more.
He is a great speaker, and in one of his talks, he said the following phrase that caught my attention, where he mentions that the opposite of success is not failure. Listen to the video below.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cxifcmdr5eW/?igshid=ODk2MDJkZDc2Zg%3D%3D
"I was sitting, and I had a profound realization that I had spent my entire career with the understanding that the opposite of success is failure. Going back to the implicit and explicit messages, what are we taught in school? That the opposite of up is down, that the opposite of success is failure. But it wasn't until the moment I was sitting with Quincy Jones that I could finally see that success and failure are not only not opposites but are opposite sides of the same coin. Because they are both the outcomes of the same thing: they are the result of trying. So the opposite of success is not failure, the opposite of success is not trying."
Recently, Forbes Brasil published a quote on its Instagram from entrepreneur Adam Osborne, a pioneer in creating the first portable personal computer in 1981: "The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake. You learn nothing from being perfect." I loved it, and even more, I loved the comment from my student in the "Art of Public Speaking" mentoring, the great Fernando Barra, who said, "Many times, 'being right' can be a big mistake. Making mistakes is not fun, and the process of recognizing it is painful, but there is only learning when we admit failure and seek a new path. When you learn and rejoice in discovering a mistake, you open yourself up to learning more."
It is a fact that the culture of error - and again, not the trivialization of error but the understanding that one can have from the error - is one of the hottest topics in companies. So much so that my lecture on "Antifragility and the Culture of Error" is one of the most demanded today. But let's delve into the mechanisms by which success and failure are not opposites but complementary and two sides of the same coin.
Let's think about the products or services we sell, in my case, speeches. I have to admit, for a few weeks now, my business has been slower than usual: maybe it's the market, the competition, have I positioned myself incorrectly? Well, I don't know what it is yet, but I know it's slower than usual.
Let's think about the periods when I sell a lot of speeches. When we sell a speech, it's very exciting. It's a kind of victory, for example, signing with a new client. You are excited about the next job opportunity. You are excited to work with the new client. You are enthusiastic about the revenue and profits it will bring to the business. Overall, there's a sense of positive emotions in the air around the office.
Then there's the opposite. What if you don't get the contract with the potential new client? What if you come in second place? If they don't close with you? You feel disappointed, a bit like me lately. Maybe you start to get down. All that hard work, time, and effort invested in the sales process and project presentation. You thought you could secure the contract for that speech. Landing this new client would have made your day, your month, your year. But it didn't happen. And now?
Ask yourself:
How do I view both business situations?
Well, the best answer is:
View both business situations the same way.
Here's why:
If you and your company win the new contract and gain a new valuable client, you can celebrate the victory that day and say, "This is GREAT! This is FANTASTIC!" But the next business day, reality needs to set in quickly. Think about "what now?" and "what to do next" to keep the business coming through the door.
It was yesterday that you made the sale. Where is the next opportunity to serve another client and profit for the company? In other words, what did you sell today? You can't just rest on your victories. Keep moving forward in pursuit of MORE business success. The only way to do that is to get back into the game immediately.
The same applies when you face a loss in business. You lose a client. Lose a contract. You can, so to speak, mourn the loss. But this mourning must be brief. You cannot indulge in sadness for too long—at least not in business. It's time to be more strategic about your business. Tell yourself: I didn't get that one, but I'll find another. Time to change my attitude. Be positive. Look ahead. Regain your winning attitude now.
Whether you are winning in business, which is preferable, or losing, which is not preferable, you can only experience these emotions for a short period. After that, it's essential to get back on track with your business goals.
The funny thing is that in science, this is much clearer than in business, as I mentioned in the opening example with my mother's case. For a scientist, the only people who never make mistakes and never experience failure are those who never try.
From this, we can understand that in a company where mistakes are not allowed, and where fingers are pointed after a failure without even asking about the learning obtained, what will happen is that people will not try hard enough. Think about what happens if you make a mistake the first time and are punished. If you make a mistake a second time and are punished. If you make a mistake a third time and are punished… will you try again a fourth time? Obviously not. You will think: how do I do everything possible to avoid making a mistake and not fall into punishment? This way, the company will be extremely productive and efficient, and will have minimized errors… the only problem? It will have teams completely disengaged with its innovation and reinvention process because they don't try hard enough.
A culture that celebrates the attempt, even if it fails, reminds me of the culture of the early days on Tinder, the dating app I led in Brazil for 5 years.
Tinder had a challenge to monetize the app, which had been launched entirely free. How to make money with it? Obviously, no one had the answer, and that's why experiments began, and trying different things—even knowing it could lead to error. Some examples? The launch of Tinder Moments, a Stories-like feature nowadays (where photos disappeared after 24 hours)… it was a failure and soon removed from the app. Then came Tinder Social, a way for you to meet people in groups, not necessarily individually… it was a failure (especially in terms of press), and therefore it was removed from the app. But among many mistakes, there was a big hit: Tinder Passport, a way for you to change your location in the world for a small fee. The result was a huge success that made Tinder the highest-grossing app on the App Store in Brazil. Would it have happened without the previous mistakes and learnings? Certainly not.
Another example you probably know: Game of Thrones. "Game of Thrones" (GoT) is based on the book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin. When HBO decided to adapt these books into a series, they were taking a risk. The stories were complex, full of characters, and with many different settings. Moreover, until then, epic fantasy series were seen as a niche.
The pilot episode was not well received internally, and many considered it a "mistake." There were issues with the cast, the script, and the direction. In many companies, this could mean the end of a project. However, HBO decided to give it another chance and invest in reshooting the pilot. After re-recording the pilot and making adjustments based on feedback, "Game of Thrones" was launched and became one of the most successful series in modern television. It won numerous awards and garnered a massive fan base worldwide.
The lesson here is that, instead of discarding a project after a "failure," HBO showed resilience and a willingness to learn from its mistakes. Instead of seeing the problematic pilot as a final failure, they saw it as an opportunity for learning and adjustment. This mindset is crucial for promoting a culture of error, where mistakes are seen not as catastrophic failures but as opportunities for learning and growth.
So, as a final reminder, let's take a moment to recall the main message here: success and failure are not opposites as commonly thought. Rather, like Yin and Yang, they are two sides of the same coin because each contains a bit of the other. What is the opposite of success then? It is obviously not trying, which is much more dangerous than experimenting and making mistakes… why? Because you learn nothing in between.
