A few months ago, I ran a small experiment.

Instead of avoiding failure, I tried to actively pursue it.

The goal was simple: get rejected five times in a month.
Five clear “no’s.” Five moments where I asked for something and it didn’t work out.

What surprised me wasn’t how hard the rejections were, it was how hard they were to get.

Out of twenty deliberate attempts, I only received three rejections. In several cases, I was fully expecting to be told no, and instead, the answer was yes.

I asked to be seen early at an appointment and was accommodated.
I reached out to someone I assumed wouldn’t have time for a networking call, and they agreed.

The gap between my expectation of rejection and the actual outcome was striking.

These experiences raised an important question: why do we avoid failure so aggressively, even when the cost of trying is low?

Research in psychology helps explain this. Many professionals operate with what’s known as a fixed mindset - the belief that competence is something you either have or don’t. In that framework, failure feels like a verdict on capability rather than a normal part of learning.

By contrast, individuals and organizations that adopt a growth mindset treat failure as data. A signal. Something to be examined, not hidden.

There’s a reason concepts like the “Failure Résumé” have gained traction in academic and professional settings. When people document rejections, missed opportunities, and unsuccessful attempts, it becomes clear that meaningful progress almost always includes a significant amount of non-success.

What we often mistake as confidence is actually just selective visibility. We see outcomes, not attempts.

One of the most overlooked aspects of failure is that it’s easier (and more productive) when it’s not handled alone.

When failures stay private, they tend to feel larger and more personal than they actually are. When they’re shared, with peers, managers, or accountability partners, they become learning moments instead of lingering doubts.

In professional environments, this matters. Teams that can openly discuss what didn’t work are better at adapting, improving systems, and making informed decisions. Silence around failure doesn’t reduce risk - it just obscures it.

Most teams say they want to improve. Far fewer teams create space to try things that might not work.

In my experience, the toughest clients to work with are the ones who say they want to grow and adapt, but their team has a mindset of “Well, that’s just the way we’re always done it.” In a world where everything is changing so quickly, the most dangerous thing a company can do is stay still.

Yes, there is a relative safety in doing things the same way every time. That also means that the muscle for handling discomfort, change management and innovation probably hasn’t been worked for that team in a very long time.

So, I’ve been experimenting with a simple idea: what if teams actively tracked their failures instead of avoiding them?

For one month, the team commits to documenting five things that didn’t work.

Not personal mistakes. Not postmortems after a crisis.
Small, intentional attempts to improve how work gets done.

This could include:

Each attempt gets logged in a shared document:

This kind of practice strengthens a team’s ability to handle change through exposure and repetition. It may take a little while, but this will also show the organization is willing to try new things, listen to new ideas, and innovate internally.

Failure doesn’t mean something went wrong, it often means something new was attempted, and that you learned something valuable. Now, you can try another change with more information, more confidence, and a higher chance of success.