Spiritual Bookshelf Episode 66 :How to Fail the Right Way -Psychological Safety, Part 9

Hi everyone, welcome back to the show — I’m Phillip. I hope your week has been at least somewhat steady. Maybe not everything went as planned, but I hope you still found a few small moments of strength — a warm cup of coffee, a meaningful conversation, or that quiet thought before bed: “It’s okay, I’ll try again tomorrow.”Today I want to continue talking about something every one of us encounters while moving through life, work, family, and relationships — failure. If you’ve recently gone through a setback, big or small, this episode is especially for you.There’s no research that counts how many times a person fails in a lifetime, but psychology helps us understand failure better. We can loosely see it in three levels: small everyday failures, medium-sized setbacks, and major life-shaping crises. And when we see it this way, we realize — failure shows up far more often than we notice.Psychology suggests that these painful moments often carry the greatest potential for growth — if we’re willing to pause, reflect, and understand what they’re trying to teach us. So instead of asking, “How many times will I fail?” a better question is: when failure happens, do I have the courage and capacity to grow from it?Failure isn’t about quantity — it’s about meaning. Failing more doesn’t automatically make someone stronger, and failing less doesn’t automatically mean success. What matters is whether we face failure honestly and see it as feedback rather than a verdict on our worth. Mature people treat failure not as proof that “I’m not good enough,” but as information that helps them adjust direction.That’s why, in Right Kind of Wrong, Amy Edmondson reminds us that the issue isn’t that mistakes occur — the real question is how we respond afterward. No person, team, or relationship can avoid failure entirely. What determines growth is whether we build a healthy failure culture.A healthy failure culture allows mistakes to be seen and discussed, instead of hidden or punished. Environments that silence mistakes may look perfect on the surface — but underneath are fear and unspoken risk.Edmondson highlights four qualities. The first is openness — people can ask questions and talk honestly about what didn’t go well. The second is psychological safety — when someone admits uncertainty or a mistake, they don’t fear humiliation. Without this, people stop speaking up — and improvement becomes impossible.A strong example is Microsoft under Satya Nadella. The company wasn’t weak, but its culture leaned toward competition and defensiveness. Nadella shifted it from a “know-it-all” culture to a “learn-it-all” one — encouraging curiosity, honest discussion of failures, and collaboration. Innovation accelerated not only because of technology, but because psychological safety increased.The third quality is systemic learning — instead of blaming a person when something fails, we look for patterns, unclear processes, or structures that make mistakes more likely. The fourth is accumulated wisdom — mistakes are reflected on and turned into shared learning so others don’t repeat them.And I think that applies to our personal lives too. The safest people are not those who never fail — but those who can face failure honestly, learn from it, and keep moving forward.So if you’re in a season of disappointment or wrestling with failure — you’re not alone. As painful as it may feel, this moment may also be an invitation to see more clearly, adjust expectations and pace, and discover a deeper kind of strength.If this episode has been meaningful to you, I’d be grateful if you shared it with someone who may also be struggling with failure but is still trying their best to move forward. Thanks for spending this time with me — I’m Phillip, and I’ll talk to you next time.