Failure as new learning strategy: The FuckUp Nights

Frustration and disappointment can lead businessmen and entrepreneurs to desist from their goals after savouring the bitter failure.  You might be in this situation now, but knowing you are not alone will calm you down.

Indeed, most millionaires and successful businessmen have had some difficulties in their careers before reaching their goals. This fact must remind us that you don’t need to reach success before than anyone, the key is not to give up in the face of adversity.

The cases of the best-known entrepreneurs of all-time are a good example of that and have been an inspiration for businessmen and professionals from all over the world: from Walt Disney, who was broke, to The Beatles, who were rejected by several record companies; and also to Henry Ford, who had to close his first business because his vehicles were considered too expensive and low-qualified, a fact that encouraged him to keep on improving his productive system.

As more recent examples, we have the case of the founder of the British cosmetic chain The Body Shop, Anita Roddick, who had to deal with the opposition of several funeral parlours to the name of the business. The successful case of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchises is also worthy to mention; after their founder, Harland David Sanders, was bound to economic ruin because of the debts that his restaurant had accumulated during 20 years of work.

But without a doubt, it is Steve Job’s experience and his love-hate relationship with Apple the one which is getting more attention lately. The co-founder of the well-known brand was fired from the company in 1985, but after developing the platform NeXT for educators, he was readmitted resulting into some of the company’s most emblematic creations such as iPods and iPads.

Although failing is not pleasant and only few people can accept it open-mindedly, there are so many cases of companies which collapsed and entrepreneurships which didn’t lead them to a positive destination, that, far from keeping on considering failure as a taboo subject, it is thought, for example in the USA, that the more failures a person has experienced, the more chances of success he will have, as he demonstrates a huge capacity of recovery and of learning from his own mistakes.

As a result of this belief, we can see ingenious initiatives such as the Fuck Up Nights, which have started to turn these bitter experiences into a motivational argument. The Fuck Up nights are monthly events where businessmen and entrepreneurs meet to share their most disastrous experiences in an informal and humorous way, explaining the points in where they were wrong and how they think they should have had behaved. A new way of sharing apprenticeships that can work well for other people who are going through that same situation. The idea is being well received all over the world and also in Spain, where it has started to be held in cities like Madrid, Valencia and Badajoz.

            “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”

Winston Churchill