I spent a lot of time this past week watching The Masters, my favorite golf tournament. I was especially locked in on Sunday, fully invested in every shot Rory McIlroy took.
Watching Rory go on to win and claim his first Masters—and complete golf’s version of the Grand Slam—was incredible. If you’re not a golf fan, that means he’s now won every major tournament in golf, and Rory is only the fifth person in history to do this. He’s been trying to complete the Grand Slam for seven years and has had some pretty public failures along the way, both at The Masters and in other majors.
This all really reminded me of a key lesson I’ve been sharing lately: Failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of the process. I’ve talked a lot about this at Service Express and have had the chance to speak about it with students at Central Michigan and the University of Michigan.
Really let that lesson sink in. Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s part of how you get there.
Show me one great success story in business, sports, the arts or anything where someone didn’t face failure at some point. Some people fail early, some fail after success, but no one escapes it.
Failure is part of the path–that’s why I feel so strongly about this message. Some people want to enjoy success but skip over the hard parts. It doesn’t work that way. Even Justin Rose, who finished second to Rory, said it best: if you want to hoist the trophy, you have to be willing to take the failures that come with it. Success and failure go hand in hand.
So, here’s my message to you—and to myself: Embrace failure, fail forward, own it, learn from it and apply it. That’s how you grow. That’s how you find success. And I believe the people who do this best will be the ones who go the farthest. Let’s all do it together.
