The Failure Fist-Pump

I know it’s hokey. Sue me.

When I’m coaching sales professionals in a workshop, I encourage a very specific action whenever the attendees stumble, fumble, stutter, forget their lines, say “uhhhh,” or just completely stop out of frustration and discomfort. I encourage a fist pump in response to all of these. That’s right, I encourage fumbling sales professionals to make a fist, raise it to shoulder level, pull it down hard and say, “Yessss!”

My reason for having them celebrate failure in this way is that it will help them build the habit of welcoming failure.  Because failure is the only route to skill improvement, it must be celebrated.

Have you ever learned to play an instrument? The “music” you created in those early days of learning was…well, perhaps calling it “music” is overstating it. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear what even virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma was doing to a cello when he was first learning! Do you really believe LeBron James came out of the womb dunking a basketball? Even the most skilled brain surgeon in the world effectively “killed” a few cadavers when learning their craft.

It is just the same in that branch of performance art we call “sales.” Skill development runs the path of failure, and in the absence of such failure, the only result is a plateau of mediocrity.

Try the fist pump. Celebrate failure. You can’t fail if you don’t try, and trying is change and change is progress! Require yourself to get excited with the inevitable progress that failure proves.

Fail much, my friends…and you’ll change the world.