Failure Is the Job

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I love documentaries. I don’t watch television series (except Ted Lasso), but I do search out and crave documentaries.

And so, the release of ​Marty, Life Is Short​ (the documentary of Martin Short) on Netflix, was perfectly timed (as in, there is never a bad time to watch a documentary).

There was one part that has stayed in my brain for the past week.

Martin Short ​starred in a sitcom​ developed by and starring John Mulaney in 2014. It bombed.

John, being devastated by the reviews and knowing that the show would be cancelled, had a discussion with Martin about it. Martin’s response:

“Don’t you know? 98 percent of this is failure, because that’s the job. Nothing works and then something works.”

—–

Martin Short’s favorite performer is Frank Sinatra. In the documentary, he quotes Sinatra’s My Way:

Regrets, I’ve had a few But then again, too few to mention.

That line sounds like confidence. Like Sinatra didn’t fail much. Of course he didn’t. He’s Frank. But Short hears something else in it. Maybe even Frank didn’t take enough swings. Maybe even Frank played it safer than he should have.

That’s the lesson. We don’t fail too much. We fail too little.

And that is a hard thought, because most of us are trying to build a life where failure is minimized. We want the clean path. The proven path. The path where we can explain every decision before we make it.

But that is not how meaningful work happens.

The best work usually comes after a long line of things that did not work. The draft before the final manuscript of ​The Will to Die​ was a joke. I mean, incredibly bad. The number of bad decisions I made before creating Content Marketing Institute could fill a warehouse.

We want the thing that works. But the thing that works usually comes after a pile of things that don’t.

That was Martin Short’s gift to John Mulaney. He wasn’t dismissing the pain. He was reminding him of the job.

I remember being near tears in my backyard after my first business failed. I called my mentor, Jim, and he politely asked me, “Did you expect your first idea to work?”

It caught me off guard.

And was exactly what I needed.

But failure is not the opposite of the job.

Failure is the job.

When I think about how successful CMI became, I realize the failures are so intertwined with the success that they are inseparable. We could not have gotten to what worked without walking through what didn’t.

This is true whether you are creating a show, building a business, writing a book, launching a newsletter, changing careers, or trying to become known for something that matters.

You are going to be wrong. You are going to misread the room. You are going to build something nobody asked for. You are going to have moments where you think, “Maybe I’m not actually good at this.”

Good.

That means you are taking swings.

The danger is not failure. The danger is building a life so protected from failure that nothing ever has the chance to work.

You cannot think your way into the answer. You have to create your way into it. Put something into the world and let the world respond. Sometimes it responds with applause. Sometimes with silence. Sometimes with a kick in the teeth.

All of it helps.

Near the end of the documentary, Short says he’s had an 80 percent failure rate. He considers that extraordinary. I love that.

Failure does not mean, “I am not cut out for this.” It simply means, “That version didn’t quite work.”

Forrest Gump might say, “one less thing to worry about.”

So take the swing. Ship the idea. Make the call. Write the bad draft. Launch the thing before you have all the answers.

Not because failure is fun.

Because failure is the job.

P.S.: ​A reminder that I’m giving away my book, Burn the Playbook, for free​. Please share it with a friend. If you don’t want to fit in, this could be your (or their) roadmap.