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“I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up”: Laughing at Failure

Remember that commercial, sometime in the 80s, I think. It’s been spoofed many times since, more than it deserves to be. I mean the acting isn’t Oscar material, but it isn’t bad enough to warrant the kind of derision it got over the years. So what’s going on here?

For that matter, what’s so funny about someone slipping on a banana peel? Mainly the fact that it’s not us doing it. Laughing expresses our gladness that we’re not in their boots, and also maybe is a bit of an “exorcism” of something we don’t want for ourselves. Laugh and it won’t seem like a big deal.

Now unless your body is vulnerable (age, injuries), slipping on a peel doesn’t cause much harm. But being elderly, alone, and unable to get up, now that’s frightening when you think of it.

And that’s the point: laughter prevents us from thinking about it. It distances us from the fear or being alone and vulnerable. Of lying there in pain, not knowing how to get help.

Why am I talking about this here? Because it reminds me of how we fear failure.

We fear it and either discount its possibility too much by refusing to consider how to minimize its likelihood or impact, or we give too much energy to trying to prevent it even if it’s a remote possibility.

And for many of us, it’s particularly hard to bounce back after setbacks, personal or professional. It’s a skill I was never taught in business school; I think because of the usual mindset, you know the one that says: “Failing is for losers and don’t think about being a loser or you’ll become one.” Yet it’s a skill we really need to learn. We are going to fail many times in our lifetimes. That’s for sure, unless we do nothing, risk anything. And that’s the biggest failure of all.

So how do you bounce back when you feel like a failure? That topic was so interesting to me I chose it as my contribution to a book I co-authored with other coaches. Here’s the link if you want to look into it: http://www.topcoachesshare.com/volume3/HeleneDesruisseaux

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