The only real way to succeed is to fail, and failure is something we can all succeed at

THERE’S a great scene in Seinfeld that involves Jerry throwing one of his stand-up comedy sets.

He bombs on purpose to sabotage the guy following him, Kenny Bania, the world’s worst comedian.

So Jerry takes a dive and afterwards he’s in the wings gloating. “Ah, the sweet stench of failure,” he says.

Watching that episode again recently I thought, “yep, I know that smell”. Who doesn’t, right?

A wonderful little book crossed my desk the other day. It’s called How To Fail Fantastically by Melburnian writer Ken Williams.

“At last a self-help guide that’s actually achievable,” the cover blurb promises. I urge you to get a copy. It’s a hoot. But it is also wise because it values failure.

And it set me thinking about my many failures.

I have had a modicum of success in life — but as with all of us there was a litany of failures along the way, and they have helped build a certain resilience.

My first big failure was on the Gold Coast when I was 17. I got a weekend job as a waiter in the Celebrity Room at the Broadbeach International Hotel.

As a waiter I was worse than Manuel from Fawlty Towers and got sacked the first night. I threw a bread roll at one of the customers. So what? It just happened that the manager saw it.

A couple of summers later I got a holiday job as a labourer on the Hinze Dam. It was like a hellish scene from Spartacus with the slaves toiling away in the salt mines. Needless to say I wasn’t much of a worker and I was ejected from the site shortly after the foreman witnessed my efforts. I was so glad I failed at that job!

Soon afterwards I tried selling fire extinguishers. I went up and down the Gold Coast for a week without selling one. Of course there were many other failures to come. None of them felt good at the time but now I embrace them. I mean excellence is all well and good but we can’t all be excellent all the time, can we? But every one of us can fail.

As author Ken Williams says: “If you don’t know how to fail, you’ll never be successful.” So go for it. Fail. You know it makes sense.