For a child, FAIL is nothing more than the “First Attempt In Learning.” As her father, it’s my responsibility to help her grow comfortable with failing so she can be the best version of herself.

Likewise, in business, one of the biggest mistakes I see talented people make in their careers is being afraid to fail. The prospect of failing is so intimidating, they pursue goals they are guaranteed to achieve rather than aim for more ambitious outcomes they could miss. They are so motivated to avoid error, they shortchange themselves and their colleagues, sacrificing creativity and ingenuity for the safety of the status quo.

To make any decision is to take a risk. Some percentage of our decisions will fail. According to JP Morgan’s Chief Marketing Officer, , “If you’re not failing, then you’re not learning.”

One of the best ways people can get comfortable making fast decisions is to focus on “two-way door” decisions making, rather than “one-way door” decision making. Jeff Wilke, Senior Vice President of Consumer Business at Amazon, does a great job the critical difference between these two: “A one-way door is a place with a decision if you walk through, and if you don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back. You can’t get back to the initial state. A two-way door, you can walk through and can see what you find, and if you don’t like it, you can walk right back through the door and return to the state you had before.”

Two-way door decisions are reversible and therefore require less vetting. As Wilkes says, “Why would we need anything more than the lightest weight approval process for those two-way doors?” What applies for Amazon as an organization applies to people as well. Why worry too much if you can walk it back?

As a CEO, I encourage my employees to make two-way door decisions. This may take the form of releasing a software enhancement that can be rolled back, or piloting a program within a single department before implementing company-wide.

One-way door decisions require more thought and buy-in since they cannot be undone. Both decision types have the potential to yield great results, but one-way decisions risk greater repercussions if they are wrong and take greater care and vetting.

If fear of failure is hindering your organization’s ability to innovate or your personal ability to take risk in your life, consider using the concept of two-way door decision making. It is a safe, simple, smart way to open up your employees or yourself to the risk of failure, and, more importantly – the risk of success.

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I think back to college. There were courses I admit I put off most of my effort until a day or two before the test. I would then “cram” all the information in as quickly as possible. It worked on test day, but if asked the same questions a few months later, I likely would not have known the answers. Had I spread out my learning over the whole semester, doing a little bit of learning and coming back to it, my ability to retain the information would have been much higher.

Imagine filling a bucket with a hose on full force. Let go, and the bucket has water, but it still has lots of room at the top. Try again. Water flies out of the bucket and still there is room at the top for more water when you are done. Now put the bucket under a faucet with a slow drip. Eventually the bucket will not only fill to the top, its water will actually bead up over the bucket’s edge, yet all the water is still retained. It appears learning works much the same way.

During my years of practicing Jiu Jitsu, we successfully used the interleaving method. Instead of teaching students a single technique until they perfected it, we would introduce a technique and not come back to it for a while. We would vary their training exercises. Mastery still required students to exert sustained effort over time but avoiding repetitive practice sessions sped their progress.

Not only do mixed practice sessions increase learning rates, they also improve retention. Upon completion of three months of math instruction, a University of South Florida showed that middle schoolers taught using the interleaving method tested 25% better than their blocking-educated peers. More impressive, they scored 76% better one month later.

One explanation for interleaving’s dramatic results is that the technique actually makes it difficult for the brain to rely on rote responses. Since practice sessions cover multiple skills, the same approach cannot be applied to every task. Think about your daily commute. Most of us take the same route every day, driving almost on auto-pilot. But what happens if there’s a detour and you find yourself on unfamiliar streets? You’re forced to pay more attention to get where you’re going. Interleaving is taking “deliberate detours” to hone one’s abilities and cultivate critical thinking.

Sleep is another theory for why interleaving works. During sleep, your body moves memories, thoughts, and learning from short term to long term memory. But not all of this information goes from short to long term in one night. Each time you come back to a subject, more of that knowledge is transferred into your long term memory while you sleep, allowing your body to add more pieces to the puzzle and making the learning more permanent.

When training new hires, many organizations teach and test on one procedure at a time over the course of long, consecutive days. This can produce a false sense of mastery, with employees using a single strategy, held temporarily in their short term memories, to fulfill onboarding requirements. For greater, long term impact, training topics need to be varied and sessions need to be conducted in smaller time increments. Topics need to be repeated over time. While it requires more initial effort, the rewards of interleaving make it well worth the extra planning.

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Complaining

Complaining in excess of 30 minutes a day damages a person’s brain, according to research by Stanford University biology/neurology professor . Whether you’re the griper or the listener, persistent exposure to negativity peels back neurons in the hippocampus – the part of the brain used for problem solving and cognitive function. Over time, complaining becomes habitual, and, if you’re surrounded by complainers, you’re more likely to become one.

To keep my brain as sharp as possible, I surround myself with positive people. Chronic complainers who consistently give voice to what’s wrong in their lives or who persist in seeing the world from a “glass half empty” perspective drain my energy and I avoid them. I also strive to practice discernment instead of judgement. Discernment is looking at a situation and saying, “I would have handled it differently.”  Judgement is saying, “I can’t believe the fool did that.” Judgement is draining, discernment is not.

Gossiping

“Gossip creates gall, envy, and torture that disrupt digestion and create mal-stress,” Dr. Kathy Dooley. “This stress exacerbates anxiety, tension headaches, and other pre-existing symptoms associated with stress.” On top of the physical maladies a gossiper themselves can experience, their words can hurt others and disrupt otherwise healthy workplace relationships and environments.

When I witness high school level social interactions in a professional world, gossip usually plays a large part. My customary counsel is never to say anything behind a person’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face. Of course, in business, there are times when we have to coach up or part ways with an associate and determining the right course of action requires discussing the person without them present. But if you have your coworkers, clients, and the business’ best interests at heart, the odds are any discussions will be devoid of gossip.

Making Excuses

All of us fall short sometimes. But explaining why we failed doesn’t negate the fact we did. Nor does prefacing a new project with a big disclaimer so we have a ready excuse when we don’t succeed.

“Wisdom stems from personal accountability. We all make mistakes; own them… learn from them. Don’t throw away the lesson by blaming others,” advises behavior scientist and author Steve Maraboli.

Setting (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals at the outset of any project increases the likelihood of repeated success. And embracing failures when they do occur demonstrates maturity and self-awareness. In my experience, people who succeed more than they fail and who own up to their failures are best suited for leadership roles.

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