 After reading the latest book by award-winning TV and radio host Tavis Smiley, "Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure," one is left with the seemingly contradictory conclusion that nothing succeeds like failure.
Commemorating his 20 years in broadcast journalism, Smiley chronicles moments that on the surface one would not connect with his success. Smiley dispels the notion that life for him has always been a crystal stair.
"As I started to reflect on what the 20-year journey has been about and what we've been able to accomplish, what I've really done is 'fail my way up.'"
Smiley credits the words of poet Samuel Beckett as an inspiration to his career success: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Smiley has obviously taken Beckett's words to heart. "It occurred to me 20 years later what I've really been doing everyday is trying to fail better, I've been able to fail my way up.
Smiley is calling for a paradigm shift in our collective discourse, by redefining failure as a potential friend rather than a permanent adversary.
"I want to redefine failure with one word: Preparation. If failure is anything it is preparation," he said.
Smiley's book seductively raises the question: Is society hamstrung by an incessant desire to talk only of success that reduces the possibility of one achieving his or her desired goals? "There is no winning without losing; there is no success without failing. So we're really fooling ourselves if we think we can only focus on the success. That's not how life works," he said.
When I asked Smiley if there was a poignant moment for him during this book project that really stood out, he unequivocally stated: "I didn't realize how many failures I've had."
Having obtained the measure of professional success that Smiley has, it is easy, and perhaps even predictable that one would forget the myriad failures along the way.
If Smiley sounds repetitive it's with good reason. His has been a career that has witnessed failure morph into even greater success. After Black Entertainment Television (BET) fired Smiley, CNN, ABC, and NPR simultaneously hired him.
But failure, as Smiley discusses, is something that we attempt to avoid. One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is deemed successful who has not also tasted the bitterness of failure.
"Anyone who is successful in any human endeavor, if they're honest, will admit to you that they've learned more from their failures than they have ever learned from their successes," Smiley said.
It was the failure of his Senate campaign that catapulted Abraham Lincoln to presidency. It was Martin Luther King's failure in Albany, Ga., that led to his successful campaign in Birmingham. John F. Kennedy's failure at the Bay of Pigs can be linked to his success in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As Smiley chronicles in his book, perhaps the poster child for failing up is President Barack Obama. In 2000, during the Democratic primary for the House of Representative seat on Chicago's South Side, incumbent Bobby Rush soundly defeated state Sen. Obama by a margin of 2 to 1.
Moreover, during that same year, Obama, without a credential, found it difficult to attend the Democratic Convention held in Los Angeles. Four years later, he was the convention's keynote speaker, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Smiley's notion of "failing up" is universal in its application. "It works for presidents, it works for talk show hosts, it works for columnists, and it works for everyday people."
Though it remains to be seen if "failing up" works for columnists, there is a fear of failure in our society that is palpable, paralyzing and pervasive. Whether it comes in the form of corporations, the direction of the country or our personal lives, for many it feels all-consuming.
Failure has a way of tapping into those impulses that bring out the worst in us, while suppressing the better angels of our nature.
What Smiley proves in his latest offering is that we should learn to look at failure differently. Instead of our antagonist, we should view failure as the adjacent occupant in the duplex that also houses success.
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