corner offices than men, and if a woman dares become a mother, she's often seen as a liability rather than an asset. All of this is intensified for women of color, and trans and gender non-conforming people.Anne Fisher pointed to a theory Brendan Reid, a businessman and author, wrote about. Reid said that failing up may happen because people who fail are also those who take risks.
There's no prescription for how to overcome this; instead, it seems like a cultural shift is needed in how the people who hold positions of power reward women. But in the meantime, we can still think like Mindy and come to the table with the confidence of someone who is rewarded, even in failure. Failure is risky, and I certainly don't think we should go full throttle, 100% of the time, trying to execute risky — or, dare I say, bad — ideas. These will not always be rewarded, nor should they be. Risk taking is all about planning, balance, and figuring out a backup plan in case failure could put you in danger.
We can't control how our failures will be perceived, we can only control how hard we try to execute our ideas and how we react in the face of them falling through. In the best cases, we'll find ourselves failing up — being rewarded for the times we've crashed and burned. If that doesn't happen, at least we'll know we did everything in our power to reach our goals, and that's never a bad place to be.
brittneymac15 'I couldn’t see the way out. But even with my tunnel vision, I was able to pause, seek happiness through magazines and the internet, and to truly discover what I love and want for my life.' AIMEESONG on how feelings of failure shaped her career:
brittneymac15 thank you for this