How to Survive Failure and Come out Stronger

By Ashutosh Garg

No parent tells their child that it is okay to fail. We love success! Nobody wishes to fail. Yet, failure and success are two sides of the same coin.

Failure is painful, and it causes emotional turmoil, inflicting agonising pangs of guilt, regret and remorse. But those who have experienced true failure and have bounced back from it understand that failure is necessary for success. Yes, of course, failing hurts. In fact, it cuts deep like a razor, slicing its way to our inner core. Yet, it is necessary.

Everyone is quick to pass judgement on failure and the person who has failed. Everyone has a reason, their own interpretation, of why the failure has happened. No one thinks of the impact on the person who has failed.

But then we must also remember that repeated failure cannot be the way. To err is human, but if the eraser wears out before the pencil, you are overdoing it.

How to Survive Failure and Come out Stronger covers both the practical and psychological aspects of failure and helps us understand it. It addresses various topics like why we fail, why businesses fail, why we enjoy seeing others fail, superstitions and failure, overcoming failure and how we can cope with the fear of failure. In a world that only values success, here's a must-read that tells you it's okay to fail and how to turn the worst of time to your advantage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9789390358311

Book preview

PROLOGUE

‘Success is not final. Failure is not fatal.

It is the courage to continue that counts.’

Failure.

A word that has many different meanings, many different connotations and many different interpretations. Failure is used for individuals, organisations, products, experiences and actions.

Failure and success are two sides of the same coin. Both are relative to one another. One person can be seen to have failed because they did not succeed. Another person can be seen to have succeeded because they did not fail. With understanding failure and putting it into context, success means nothing. Success has to be in relation to someone or something else. We have succeeded because another person did not succeed or failed.

Failure is understood and interpreted in different ways by people who are faced with failure and by those who know the individual. It is handled in different ways by the person who is faced with failure. Failure is analysed by people who observe and comment upon the person who has failed.

We say that failure is painful and causes emotional turmoil and upset, and inflicts agonising pangs of guilt, regret and remorse. But those who have experienced true failure and have bounced back from it understand that failure is necessary for success. Yes, of course, failing hurts. It cuts deep like a razor, slicing its way to our inner core. Yet, it is necessary.

Very seldom has anyone attempted to understand the reason for failure or the impact of failure.

No one thinks of its impact on the person who has failed or is likely to fail. Everyone observing the failure is quick to pass judgement on the failure and the person who has failed. Everyone has a reason, their own interpretation, of why the failure has happened.

I have often wondered why Indian parents are so ambitious for their children. What is it that we are always trying to achieve through our children? Is it our own unachieved ambitions or is it a genuine desire to see our children succeed and prosper in the very competitive environment that is so prevalent in our country? What prompts us to first determine that some jobs are good and what empowers us as parents to decide what we think is good for our children?

Parents have a big role to play. Most parents from the developing world teach their children the importance of winning. They want us to come first in class, be at the front of the pack, to get ahead. All this without considering the impact this would have on the thinking of their children. My parents told me this and I told the same to my sons. As I look back now, I know this was a mistake.

This repeated reinforcement by our parents and elders manifests itself into our behavioural patterns in society.

We keep telling ourselves that we must somehow get to the head of the traffic queue at all traffic lights irrespective of what this may do to the traffic. Or what this does to the cars queued up in their lanes. The simplistic view is, ‘Who cares?’ Three lanes for cars become six lanes for cars simply because everyone wants to squeeze their car through the narrow lanes between cars. If the vehicle gets damaged, we are happy to get into a fight and blame the other driver.

We have internalised that we must force our way to the front of the immigration line. I am reminded of this young family who had queued up behind me patiently, at Bangkok airport. The moment we landed in Delhi, they pushed and shoved to get out of the aircraft first and when I asked them about their hurry at immigration, his matter-of-fact answer surprised me, ‘This is my country and I can do whatever I like.’ What was more alarming was that these young parents were setting a completely incorrect example for their young children who would certainly imbibe the need to come first.

We stick our hand into the ticket window to get a movie ticket or a train ticket without thinking of the person who is legitimately in front of us.

And, of course, we have all experienced how everyone wants to disembark from an aircraft as soon as the seat belt signs are switched off. We have even mastered the art of asking for wheelchairs at airports where the walk is or immigration lines are expected to be long. A wheelchair can get us easier access through the fast lane!

The oldest and strongest emotion of human beings is fear; and the oldest and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. Have we ever wondered why all of us seem to have an identical set of values when it comes to looking at ourselves in similar situations? Is this behaviour happening because of our fear of failure?

We love success! Nobody wishes to fail. We are embarrassed even if we commit a silly mistake.

We can relate to stories of success from our scriptures. Stories of the triumph of good over evil in the Ramayana. Stories of the Mahabharata, where Lord Krishna asks Arjun to fight and win the battle because that is his duty. Biblical stories of David and Goliath, Moses parting the Red Sea and the legend of Saint John slaying the dragon.

We never remember stories of failures or disasters. There are plenty. We do not remember the villains in these scriptures. There are many.

We expect success from ourselves and others. We celebrate success. We strive for success. We encourage one another towards success. We hold success in high regard. Our entire mindset is wired towards success which is the goal. We are constantly bombarded with ideas about success. Movies we see glorify success and generally have a happily ever after, fairytale-like ending.

Our bookshelves are filled with magazines, journals and writings on ‘how to be successful’, ‘keys to success’, ‘secrets of successful people’ and so on.

I am not suggesting that pursuing success is wrong. Success is good. However, focusing only on success is incomplete if we do not talk about failure and how to face it.

Nobody wants to talk about failure. We do not like failure. We hate it so much that we even scorn at those who fail. Even worse, we tend to dislike ourselves when we fail.

Failure is a part of life and everyone has faced failure. How each person handles failure is different.

Abraham Lincoln is possibly the most famous president of the United States of America. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln wanted nothing more than ‘to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man’. Instead of achieving the personal and professional success he craved, Lincoln was on the brink of personal and professional ruin.

He said, ‘I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.’

Lincoln’s depression was so bleak, his friends worried he was going to suicide and they removed knives, razors and scissors from his room. Day after day, he remained bedridden, unable to eat, sleep or carry out his duties in the legislature.

Abraham Lincoln had an impressive list of failures. In the 30 years chronicled below¹, he had three electoral successes and lost more often than he won.

1831: Lost his job

1832: Defeated in run for Illinois State Legislature

1833: Failed in business

1834: Elected to Illinois State Legislature (success)

1835: Sweetheart died

1836: Had a nervous breakdown

1838: Defeated in run for Illinois House Speaker

1843: Defeated in run for nomination for US Congress

1846: Elected to Congress (success)

1848: Lost re-nomination

1849: Rejected for a land officer position

1854: Defeated in run for US Senate

1856: Defeated in run for nomination for Vice President

1858:Again defeated in the run for US Senate

1860: Elected president (success)

He formed a business partnership with the country’s leading lawyer, Stephen Logan, and restarted his legal career, a process that took years. Together, they created the largest trial practice in Illinois. Lincoln became an expert in breaking down complicated legal concepts and explaining them through storytelling to jurors, an approach that served him well when he won the republican nomination for president in 1860.

Lincoln attributed ‘work, work, work’ as the key to his success.

Let me share one of my failures that changed the course of my life.

This happened when I was barely 16.

My childhood was quite uneventful. The Indian Army transferred my father quite frequently as a result of which I moved to several schools.

Once I reached class 10, I realised that my parents and my grandparents were very keen that I become a doctor. I had no interest in biology, but I was also blissfully unaware, like a lot of kids at my age, on what I wanted to do in life. Biology classes were difficult to go through and I used to hate dissecting earthworms and cockroaches. I would usually get into trouble with the biology teacher because she would find me ‘roasting’ a cockroach on the laboratory Bunsen burner!

On finishing my Senior Cambridge (class 11) in 1972, my parents were both happy and shocked to see my grades. While I had scored 95 per cent each in English language, literature and mathematics, I had scored very poorly in the science subjects with 50 per cent in physics, 40 per cent in chemistry and 35 per cent in biology. I had failed in biology and hated the subject. Yet my parents wanted me to be a doctor!

India has always had a very competitive environment, given our population and all parents dream of incredibly successful kids. My parents too had similar ambitions for their son and made me write all the premedical test examinations and I disappointed them by failing every single one of them. Instead of looking at alternative options, I was sent off to La Martiniere College, Lucknow, to study Intermediate Science with the objective that I would rewrite my premedical tests.

I finished my intermediate examination in 1974, and once again wrote all the premedical entrance examinations for all the medical schools and failed all of them once again, leaving very little options open for me.

Given the fiasco of the admissions to medical colleges, I had forgotten to apply to any other college and all admissions were closed. I was faced with the prospect of losing one more year since I should have started college in 1973. I had already spent an extra year on the Intermediate Science pursuit of my medical dream.

Since I was too late to apply for any colleges in Delhi University and all admissions were closed, an aunt, who was the principal of Daulat Ram College, used some personal contacts to get me an interview with the principal of Shriram College to apply for an honours degree in commerce.

The principal met me and said, ‘Your grades could have easily got you into any college of Delhi University if you had applied on time. What will you do after you complete your BCom.?’

I mechanically said, ‘After college, I want to become a doctor.’

My response shocked him so much that I was rejected on the spot! I had been so brainwashed into becoming a doctor that I could think of nothing else.

My father was good enough not to give up on me and took me from one college to another. It was at Hansraj College that an admissions office assistant took pity on a harassed and tired army officer with a ‘good-for-nothing son’ and admitted me out of compassion into the BCom. Honours programme.

It was at Hansraj College that I discovered the meaning of doing an MBA and for the first time I worked hard to qualify in the entrance examinations. I was fortunate enough to qualify in most of the top business schools in India. This work got me started as a young management pupil at ITC Limited.

This failure, the first of many in my life, taught me a few things. The first was that, whatever happens, the family stands with you and we can depend upon them. The second was that, it is necessary to do what one wants to do and have the ability to say no. At the age of 16, as the eldest child in my family, this may not be a viable option but as I got older, I ensured that all my younger siblings, cousins and, later, nephews and nieces were never pressurised into following a career they did not want to.

This is just one failure. I must have had dozens of serious failures and I will talk about my fallacies and failures throughout this book. It is only when we start to understand and recognise who we are and where our personal ‘fault lines’ exist can we truly start to work on understanding and handling our failures.

I am certain that many of the readers will identify with my story. Over five decades after I faced it, pressure from parents and grandparents continues to this day, that tells me that nothing has changed in the aspirations our parents and elders have for their children.

Are they living their dreams through their children? Or are they simply watching out for them to ensure that they get the right education to give them that ‘flying start’ to get ahead in life?

Once again, the most important learning for me was to keep looking ahead. I have always believed that I should look back to learn with no regrets. This is why, once I am done with a business or an organisation, I do not keep in touch with former colleagues simply to keep track of what is going on in the organisation that I have moved on from.

Over the past four decades of working across businesses and as an entrepreneur, I have had the good fortune of meeting hundreds of people and talking to them about the importance of understanding failure. It is only when we understand failure will we be able to appreciate the true meaning of success.

After I completed my sixth book, The Brand Called You, I started recording a series of podcasts and video-casts. I have spoken to over 200 established and experienced individuals. In each interview, the one common question that I have asked everyone is, ‘Tell me your biggest learnings from your failures.’

A lot of what I will cover in this book is based on the primary data that I have collected from my interviews and my personal interactions with hundreds of people around the world.

Failure is and always will be unexpected, unavoidable, uncomfortable and universal. We need to understand how to face it. More importantly, we must understand how we can use failure as a force of change.

Do not fear failure so much that you refuse to