Failure Is the Secret Engine of Success

In the café, Picasso scrawled a drawing on a napkin. When a woman asked to buy it, he named a price that reflected sixty years of failure and refinement—not the one minute it took him to sketch. It’s a pattern you see everywhere from art to entrepreneurship: the world’s best only get there by failing early and often, allowing mistakes to teach them what works.

Take a young entrepreneur who, after college, hit the worst job market in years, burned through savings, and slept on a friend’s couch. That phase was full of dead ends, embarrassing launches, and blank responses. But each 'fail' was a data point, shrinking the gap between where he was and what worked. Because his core value was autonomy, he could accept failure as part of the process, not a life verdict.

Psychologists call this a 'growth mindset.' When you see each error not as a stop sign but as a lab experiment, you progress faster, become less anxious, and develop grit. Success is less about avoiding error and more about compounding learning. Over time, those who fail fastest and reflect most diligently reach their goals while others stall, paralyzed by fear.

Write down three things that haven’t gone as planned for you, from missed free throws to flopping in an interview. For each, ask yourself what the stumble revealed—what skill do you need, what assumption needs fixing, or what experiment should be run next? This week, do something where you might fail—a new activity, a hard ask, or an honest conversation. Let go of perfection, and focus on what each attempt teaches you. With each mini-failure, you invest in your future strength. See what happens.