I just got back from Disneyland Paris, a wonderful if massively expensive experience. Disney rakes in billions from its merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world, but Walt Disney himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along and in the end, became the huge success we know today.
If you want to be successful, get ready to be a failure, many times over, right? Read just about any biography or life story about or the Richard Bransons of this world or any highly successful person, and you will find ample examples of the mistakes you need to make, the risks you have to take and the failures you should be celebrating to reach your goals. But research by the Oxford management theorist Jerker Denrell suggests that taking risks and making lots of mistakes are just as likely to be characteristics of extremely unsuccessful people, too. It’s just that the failures don’t write books. 
This idea hit Denrell during a seminar on serial entrepreneurs — those who had started several companies. “The presenter argued that these entrepreneurs were unusually persistent, did not give up when facing initial failures, and were able to generate support for their projects even when most people were initially skeptical,” recalls Denrell. “Hearing this, I thought that these were characteristics that were also necessary in order to fail spectacularly.” After all, if a project is not a good idea, yet you stick with it and persuade others to contribute resources and money, the costs of the failure will be quite large. After all, 90% of all products fail yet at the beginning probably had immense conviction and power behind them.
Perhaps failure isn’t necessary to succeed as such but is simply seen, rightly or wrongly, as a common denominator of success. It is also said that irrational optimism is something every entrepreneur must have – this unshakeable self-belief and the ability to push doubt to one side. Is complete self-belief irrational? Yes. Is it also a requirement for success? Absolutely.
I believe taking risks and making mistakes are part of leading a rich and full life and, hopefully, part of doing the work you desire. But I also think you need to be logical, rational and smart. Keep doing things differently, keep grabbing opportunities (that’s how you get “lucky”) and don’t be stubbornly blind. That means being able to accept and take on criticism, being flexible and adaptable and to keep learning – from your mistakes, whether few or many. After all, both success and failure are highly subjective – but that’s a whole other blog!
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