In his book “Leadership is Worthless…But Leading is Priceless” Dr. Thom Mayer presents many actionable yet contrarian concepts. One of the most intriguing of these is the idea of “Making Failure Your Fuel,” which builds upon the idea that innovation, which is an essential skill in these turbulent times, occurs not at the speed of genius, creativity, or intelligence, but rather at the speed of…trust. And the only way we can trust ourselves and our teams to innovate is to develop and perfect the talent of making failure our fuel.
Using stories and personal experiences from the NFL, the US Women’s’ National Soccer Team (including Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach), 9/11 at the Pentagon, Ukraine, Capital One, and world history and literature, this talk examines the details of using failure to motivate success, including:
Failure is not the opposite of success-it is an integral part of success
Failure motivates-Tom Brady and the NFL Draft
Developing Your Failure Muscles-11 ways to use failure as fuel
The Healing Power of Failure
Limits Begin Where Vision Ends
Taking ourselves lightly-and failure as our fuel
As Senator Mark Warner said in his comments on Dr. Mayer’s book, “Perhaps the greatest lesson Dr. Mayer has to offer is not to be discouraged by failure, but rather to use it as fuel-to take risks and get yourself back in the game. Leaders of all stripes can learn much from reading this book.” You can learn much from this talk.