Last week during one of our tea-time chit-chats, Manish Kumar, the new ABAPer in my Team was mentioning about one of his fellow ABAPer friend, Vijay Sundaram in his previous organization. Special thing about Vijay was, at work whenever he got a dump in the system which means whenever he was failing in his coding, he used to get excited. A sense of happiness revealed from his expressions. He then used to be lost into digging further in his coding work and try different things before he could finally succeed. Whenever he heard of someone getting a ‘dump in the system’ he was attracted to helping his friends. The best thing was he shared all his learning with everyone. Upon being asked the reason behind such a perspective, Vijay used to say “If things are working as usual, there is nothing for us to learn. Only when things don’t work the usual way, we will learn. And by sharing, our knowledge multiplies.” His PASSION for the work is revealed from the said statement. No doubt he was a STAR Performer in his work. Hats off to you Vijay!
The Beauty of Failing
A few years ago, I used to think, What If I will fail this exam? What will my Parents, my Neighbor, my Society think of me? I just cannot afford to fail? I am the Topper in school, college, how can I fail? And so on… J Many of you might have similar stories. In fact, Most of us are afraid of Failing. We see Failure as stigma and try to stay within the confines of safe zone, and not taking enough risks. Believe me, by doing this we are purely dodging ourselves. John starts with “In Life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased what would you achieve?” Powerful! Isn’t it? How one responds to failure determines the difference between the average and the achievers (in Wipro terms, the HVCs vs. the EEs/OSs).
We must embrace failure as regular part of our life. If we are not failing, chances are, we are not really moving forward. John says “If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you are not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.” The simple rule is, the more you do, the more you fail. And the more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Please think over.
What is Failing Forward? (Vs. Failing Backward)
Failing Backward: Blaming others, repeating the same mistakes, expecting never to fail again, expecting to continually fail, being limited by past mistakes, thinking I am Failure, Quitting.
I would say, celebrate your Failures as much as you celebrate your successes. 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the risks which you didn’t take than the ones which you took. Take more risks. Are you trying? Is your enough, Good enough? Think about it.
Are you failing forward? I Love Failing (of course, forward). What about You? Was this email helpful enough to change your thoughts on the concept of failing? Let me know your thoughts.
Narendra Gupta
