How to Learn from Failures in Baseball and Life

If failure was a supervillain, it would be Thanos. Looks all-powerful... but can be overcome. For years, I treated failure like the end of the story. The thing to avoid. The thing to fear. The thing that told me, definitively, “You’re not good enough.” But here’s what I’ve learned after 25 years of working in pressure-filled environments: Failure doesn’t close the chapter, it often writes the next one. A Stanford study on performance setbacks found something fascinating. When people were encouraged to reflect on failures as data, not identity, they bounced back faster, and improved long-term outcomes. → In fact, participants who reframed failure as a temporary result rather than a personal flaw showed 32% higher persistence rates. And there’s more. In sports psychology, it’s known as “constructive failure exposure.” Athletes who regularly face controlled failures in training develop faster reaction times and sharper decision-making under pressure. Why? Because they’ve felt the sting, and learned how to respond. That’s exactly how it’s played out for me. The shows that flopped. The deals that didn’t land. The podcast episodes that just didn’t connect. They hurt... yes. But each one taught me more than a win ever could. → They taught me to ask better questions. → To course-correct earlier. → To trust myself more when the next challenge came. Because once you realise failure doesn’t define you, you take away its power. So next time you feel like it’s all falling apart, remember: Even Thanos was beatable. What looks like the end might just be the turning point — but only if you’re willing to stand back up. You in?

Mistakes. Regret your candour with the boss? Made a poor and costly decision? Ignored a problem which now puts your credibility at risk? Everyone I know makes mistakes. The good news is some have profited from them. James Joyce says mistakes are the portals of discovery, and management literature contends that mistakes can lead to positive outcomes. In fact, the great Michael Jordan reminds us of how overcoming failures leads to success - “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Jordan's point is compelling, but it is not easy to accept. You can't succeed if you don't make mistakes sounds like a death sentence to many. So there is an IF - you can survive and even thrive from making mistakes if you own it, learn from it, and manage its consequences. So, how to respond when one makes a significant mistake? Many wish the mistake would be unnoticed, or let their fear obstruct sound judgment and timely decision-making. The key is to replace wishful thinking and fear with taking control of the situation. This can be achieved by O-I-C, a 3-step approach. 1. O-wn up. But tread carefully, especially if the company has a culture of blame-shifting. Importantly, pick your moment and find allies. And whatever you do, own up before your hand is forced. How do you own up? Present objectively and accurately why and how the mistake happened, take responsibility and make no excuses. Remember, the only thing worse than a person who made a big mistake is a person who made a big mistake, lacked the integrity to own up, and is stupid enough to get caught. 2. I-mprovement. Shift the focus from punishing people to improving processes so the same mistake will not happen again. Also articulate accurately the consequences of the mistake, recommend specific actions to minimise its impact, capitalise on unexpected opportunities, highlight lessons the mistake shows up and get permission to implement. 3. C-ompassion. Have compassion for yourself. Recognise that mistakes regularly happen when you innovate, strive for big wins and push boundaries. Importantly, you can learn from these experiences, share them with others and be better, wiser, and more resilient. This will help you when your next mistake happens. Whilst we can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, we can move from being the person who made the mistake to the person who thrives from it and has the gumption to make new ones. Agree?

If you’re protecting your players from losing You’re robbing them of the best teacher in sports. That might sting, but it’s true. Too many coaches rush to soften the blow after a tough loss. “We’ll get ’em next time.” “The refs were off.” “We just had an off day.” What we don’t do? Teach kids how to sit with it. Learn from it. Grow because of it. And when we skip that step, we’re not sparing them pain. We’re stealing a powerful lesson in accountability, resilience, and leadership. Because losing, when it’s framed the right way, isn’t a setback. It’s a gift. So how do you make that shift? ✅ Hold a 5-minute post-game reset after every loss. Talk only about what they could control: effort, execution, attitude. Don’t mention the scoreboard. ✅ Ask real questions. “What did we learn?” “What would we do differently?” “What did we do well, even in the loss?” ✅ Celebrate courage, not just performance. Point out the player who bounced back from a turnover. Highlight the kid who encouraged a teammate when things went south. Those are wins, too, and they compound. The goal isn’t to shield kids from failure. It’s to make sure failure teaches instead of scars. You want better athletes? Start by building better bounce-backs. — 💡 Want weekly tools to help your players lead, reflect, and grow? Subscribe to Grow the Game, the newsletter for transformational youth coaches: https://lnkd.in/gFwgbm3t

Ten thoughts on the complexity and subtleties of dealing with and considering mistakes in sport…for coaches and players… 1. Players: your first step to bravery is being willing to make mistakes, being willing to fail, being willing to look foolish To consistently play on the front foot...to consistently play with freedom...detach yourself from performance outcomes and focus on freeing up your process 2. Just because a coach gives permission for players to make mistakes doesn’t mean players won’t experience anxiety around making mistakes… Human beings are more complex than that! Individual differences weigh heavily even in the best, most adaptive environments… 3. In sport you will fail again and again. Sports are games of mistakes…games of error! So accept them and aim to use them. Build insights from them. Build skills as a consequence of having them. Build game understanding as a result of experiencing them. Love mistakes! 4. Tough and tolerant... Too many players are too tough on their performance and too tolerant on their mindset... Stop! Reverse that... Be tolerant on performance and tough on mindset. Accept in-game mistakes and failure...but refuse to respond poorly...refuse to be distracted! 5. Coaches: Help players cultivate patience by helping them be curious about mistakes and periods of poor play...rather than judgemental! Curiosity is built through effective questioning... “What small action could I have done better there?" “How can I practice that?" Questions! 6. Coaches: the importance of giving players the space for mistakes may lie in two areas: —for safety (to develop the joy of engaging and playing) -for improvement (in servitude to learning the game) Permission for mistakes is great...becoming a student of mistakes, even better! 7. There's an idea that in elite sport players should berate themselves for mistakes and should hide themselves away after a loss. The likely truth is that the best players make mistakes because they take risk. The likely reality is that the best players win more often because they accept losing 8. Some competitors can tend to mentally rehearse failure on a day to day basis. They remember the mistakes and the poor plays in detail. They learn helplessness in the quiet of their mind. They need to deliberately shift these inner pictures to their best games, best moments, best plays 9. Players should decide to let nothing or no-one upset them as they compete… They should decide to play all the way to final whistle without worry about the clock… They should decide to respond to mistakes with action...powerful, positive action. They should mentally upskill themselves so these are more fo a choice… 10. Asking "What next?" might be the simplest, most dynamic way for a player to retain focus of attention. A mind attuned to the immediate future, rather than past mistakes, is one that's attending to the right things in his, her, or their environment...

Failing well unlocks growth. But setbacks test one's learning capacity. Failures are part of any journey which often stays unseen or unnoticed. They usually do not define the journey as success does. What is crucial though are the lessons that are extracted after the fall. Converting failure into rocket fuel for success demands methodical review, identifying contributing factors dispassionately and gathering external perspectives revealing overlooked weak spots. This post-mortem fuels a shift from self-defeat to self-education. Setbacks become masterclasses in success rather than endings. Each setback strengthens judgment to refine strategies and evade future failures. How to extract lessons from failures: Conduct autopsy reviews Surgically analyze contributing factors without self-judgment. Embrace external perspectives revealing overlooked issues. This failure autopsy supplies data to update approaches. Shift mindsets from defeat to education Reframe downfalls as invaluable real-time masterclasses rather than endings. Develop resilience by extracting lessons that enrich strategies to avoid repeats. Set evolved goals informed by new wisdom. Make changes and experiment Leverage autopsy findings to re-calibrate tactics and plans. Then test new methods unafraid. Experimentation unearths workarounds while preventing strategic stagnation. Share learned lessons Document and share key takeaways openly with others. This builds organizational learning capacity as teams gain from your trials. Failing well unlocks innovation. In closing, remarkable success links directly to one’s ability to learn from failures faced. Growth flows from informed adjustments, community support and unbroken self-belief. Mine your setbacks for game-changing lessons. For within every downfall, the seeds of transcendence await rediscovery by those bold enough to rise.

Chapter 9 - Failure* Failure doesn’t always look like a collapse. Sometimes it looks like being erased. Years ago, I was leading design at a fast-growing company. Our team was doing work I was deeply proud of—bold, meaningful, considered. Fast Company spent months interviewing leadership across the company for what was meant to be a broad piece on brand and culture. But as the story evolved, it became something more specific: a feature on design, and by extension, on the team I led. They photographed me. The story was written. It was slated to run in their design issue. But someone at the top hadn’t been told. The day they found out, I was called into a closed-door meeting. No gray area. I was told I wasn’t the face of the company—and I was out. That same day, they contacted the magazine and pulled the article. Just like that, it was gone. And so was I. It was humiliating. But it wasn’t the first time I’d been let go, and it wouldn’t be the last. I’ve been fired, laid off, phased out, reorged. And each time, I walked away carrying the same question: Did the work matter if no one wanted to hear from me anymore? That’s what failure does. It shakes your sense of authorship. It leaves you standing in the wreckage of something you gave everything to, wondering if it’s even yours to remember. But here’s what I’ve learned: Failure doesn’t make you fearless. It makes you sharper. You stop making decisions for applause. You learn how to see risk coming. You learn how to work with people who can take a hit and stay focused. You stop over-explaining. You stop posturing. You get real about what it takes to do good work inside imperfect systems. Failure also doesn’t make you humble—not if you already were. What it does is rewire your instincts. You start leading differently. You become the person who stays calm when the floor drops out. You get clearer. More generous. Less interested in credit and more interested in whether the thing actually works. I’m not proud of the firings. But I’m proud of how I came back. I still take risks. Still push ideas further than I should. Still back people before the system does. And yes—sometimes that gets me in trouble. But it also gets me to the work I believe in. The kind that still wakes me up. So if you’ve failed lately, quietly or spectacularly—don’t rush to reframe it. Just carry it. See what it teaches. Let it sharpen you. You’ll come out quieter. But better. *note: not all chapters are doomsday chapters. Chapter 10, Authority, coming next. #Leadership #CareerDevelopment #PersonalGrowth #Resilience #WorkplaceCulture #Motivation #Creativity #Innovation #Mindset #Success #FailureIsFuel #CreativeLeadership #StillMaking #LearnedTheHardWay #ManifestoManifesto #WhatTheWorkTaughtMe #DesignEthics #RebuildFromHere

Roger Federer lost almost half the time. Yet we call him one of the greatest to ever do it. Why? Because he never let a single point define the match. He didn’t just bounce back - He never left the game. We’ve been sold the wrong idea about failure. We think it’s something to overcome, escape, reframe. But what if failure isn’t the opposite of success? What if it’s the operating system? What if high performers don’t just survive failure - They engineer around it? Here’s how to make failure part of your advantage: 🔁 1. Stop calling it failure ↳ Language shapes reality. ↳ Try: "data point", "experiment", or “feedback loop.” 🚶 2. Design micro-losses into your process ↳ If you’re not failing in small ways each week, you’re stagnating. ↳ Build friction. Invite resistance. It’s where edge lives. 🎯 3. Measure recovery speed, not perfection ↳ Resilience isn’t about never falling. ↳ It’s about how fast you reset. ↳ Track bounce-backs. Not wins. 🧠 4. Teach your nervous system to fail ↳ Cold exposure. Improv. Sparring. ↳ Stress rehearsal creates emotional slack. ↳ Make chaos familiar. 📓 5. Codify every “mistake” into a model ↳ Create your own “Failure OS.” ↳ Name patterns. Label triggers. Build systems. 🔮 6. Make your future bigger than your fears ↳ Fear shrinks when vision expands. ↳ If the mission is 10x, losses become noise. The truth? Most people don’t fail too much. ❌ They fail too shallow. ❌ Never deep enough to uncover the insight that changes everything. Remember: Failure is not a detour. It’s the terrain. Learn to navigate it. You’ll move faster than everyone avoiding it. 💬 What’s one way you’ve built with failure on purpose? 👇🏼 ---- ♻️ Share this to normalise building through setbacks 🔔 Follow Si Conroy for frameworks that challenge the script 📩 Get deeper takes like this in my ‘Progressive Group Therapy’ newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eTZq6A5D 📽️ Video Credit: Youtube - Dartmouth

Ever faced a setback so bad you thought you'd never recover? I have. It wasn't pretty. I was fired on the spot. During BUD/S (basic training to become a SEAL), I was the class leader. I was responsible for knowing where everyone was and making sure the class was in the right place at the right time. I not only failed to have the class at the right place, it was an inspection and nobody had prepared because I had missed it. Group "remediation" ensued for the next hour and I was the point of focus. It was demoralizing and embarrassing for me, seeing my class punished for my mistake. It was the first and only time I had considered "ringing out". And the lessons I learned have stuck with me to this day. In the entrepreneurial world, just like in the SEALs, failures happen. They're the unspoken chapters in every success story. Here's how to push through these low-points, recover, and even grow from them. 1. Analyze, Don't Romanticize: Understand what went wrong without dwelling on it. Like debriefing after a mission, extract the lessons. 2. Adapt and Overcome: Change your approach. What works in calm seas might fail in a storm. 3. Resilience is Key: Your ability to get back up is more valuable than why you fell. 4. Build Your Team: Surround yourself with people who push you to be better, in calm and stormy weather alike. Every failure is a hidden opportunity. In the SEALs, I learned to face them head-on. Now, as an entrepreneur, I use these lessons daily. Remember, you are going to take some heavy hits in your journey. Just keep getting up and keep learning. If you've faced failure and bounced back, I'd love to hear your story. Share it below! 👇 

Everyone Wants to Win—Until They Realize How Many Failures It Takes Winning is a universal desire. Whether in business, leadership, or personal growth, the idea of success excites us. But here’s the truth: success is rarely a straight line. Behind every achievement lies a trail of setbacks, lessons, and resilience. The Reality Behind Winning • Failure is the entry fee for success. Every leader, innovator, or entrepreneur has faced rejection, mistakes, or missed opportunities before reaching their goals. • Resilience separates dreamers from achievers. The willingness to keep going after setbacks is what transforms ambition into accomplishment. • Growth comes from discomfort. Each failure teaches us something new—about ourselves, our strategies, and the environment we’re navigating. Why This Matters in Leadership and HR As professionals, especially in high-growth industries, we often celebrate wins—new hires, successful integrations, cultural transformations. Yet the untold story is the number of failed attempts, pilot programs that didn’t scale, or strategies that had to be reworked. • Leaders who normalize failure create psychological safety for their teams. • HR professionals who embrace iteration foster cultures of continuous improvement. • Organizations that acknowledge setbacks build authentic resilience instead of chasing perfection. Turning Failure Into Fuel Here are three practical ways to reframe failure as part of the winning process: 1. Document lessons learned. Treat every setback as data, not defeat. 2. Celebrate effort, not just outcomes. Recognize persistence and adaptability in your teams. 3. Model vulnerability. Share your own failures—it builds trust and inspires others to keep going. Closing Thought The quote “Everyone wants to win until they realize how many failures it takes” is a reminder that success isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about enduring it, learning from it, and rising stronger. Winning isn’t reserved for the lucky few. It belongs to those who are willing to fail forward, again and again, until the breakthrough comes.

The toughest moment in sports isn’t a grueling workout or fierce competition. It's the instant right after you mess up—a missed shot, a dropped ball, a critical mistake. Why? Your brain immediately spirals into panic. And it's really hard to escape that. Even for the best. Rory McIlroy's near-collapse at The Masters shows exactly this: even champions face moments of spiraling doubt. But they figure out how to navigate it. That single mistake can trigger an "action crisis". Our focus shifts from the present task to the past failure, from executing the next play to replaying the last one. Negative thoughts snowball – "I blew it," "I can't recover," "It's over". This internal debate between persisting and giving up drains mental energy and primes our bodies for a threat response, making refocusing exponentially harder. Why do we choke or spiral after a screw-up? As I write about in Win the Inside Game, our sense of self, our identity, feels threatened by the failure. Our brain, a prediction machine, gets stuck in a loop: it anticipates disaster (loss of status, humiliation), overweights negative signals, and ignores information that contradicts the doom narrative. This misalignment between reality and prediction fuels the downward slide. We've got to re-align our brain with a better reality. We've got to get out of that fear and survive mode. Here's how: 1. Approach, Don't Avoid Your brain, when threatened by mistakes, naturally tries to avoid repeating the error. Yet avoidance heightens anxiety and narrows your focus on the mistake. Adopt an approach-oriented mindset: focusing on what they want to achieve, not on what they're afraid might happen. Always ask, "What am I moving towards right now?" “It’s much better to play to win. If you play to win and you don’t hit the shot that you want to hit, I think you can live with that. But if you play not to — if you play to not lose, you’re never really giving yourself the best opportunity, and that’s hard to swallow." 2. Find control. Have a "reset ritual." Rafael Nadal has his "towel-off" ritual between acts. It could be a deep breath, adjusting gear, or a simple phrase whispered to oneself. Routines bring back control. This consistent action sends a clear signal to your brain: the past moment is over—time to anchor yourself in the present and focus on what's next. When we feel like we're losing control, our inner alarm screams. Grasp on to the smallest thing you can do to re-establish control. 3. Slow Down. Respond Instead of React Researchers found during penalty shootouts in soccer, players who missed shots tended to shoot quicker and look away from the goalie. The stress and anxiety that came with the pressure push the athletes to escape, to get it over with it, to put an end to the situation by getting the heck out of there. Those who tended to score took longer to shoot, they slowed things down, and basically approached the situation instead of avoiding it.