“Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.“ (Henry Ford)

Yesterday we looked at the wisdom of risking enough to fail, and encouraging our kids to do the same. So what do you do after the failure?

As always, the first response is: breathe. The second response is to quiet the regret monkeys who whisper from our shoulders that we never should have tried it in the first place. The third response is to refuse any and all name-calling. (My wife has a great saying whenever she hears me echo my monkeys. If I call myself an idiot, she demands: “Don’t talk about my husband that way.”)

The final response is to seek knowledge. If experience is the best teacher, then guess what? Your failed experiment is the best education. So, why did this effort fail? If the answer cannot be: A) because it should have never been tried, or B) because you’re an idiot, then what?

That’s the lesson.