You learn more from successes than failures

The popular wisdom is to learn from failures. 

And I agree, you should. We are going to make a number of mistakes, especially if we pursue unpaved paths and risky ventures. Without bold risks and mistakes, we as humanity will not stand where we are. So being open to risk, mistakes and learning from them is crucial. Mistakes are also humbling - they force us to take a pause and reflect, whereas success can breed ego and complacency.

But I’d posit there’s more learning in successes.

Take a founder who has attempted 4 failed businesses vs a founder who has 1 successful business. Who do you think has more valuable knowledge?

I’d argue that the second founder knows at least one way to succeed and can replicate that. But the first founder can avoid a few ways to fail they have learned and has probably built up resilience to failures, but they are still left with hundreds of other ways to fail. They still don’t know a single path to success.

There’s a tongue in cheek wisdom - “Most happy families are the same, but most unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways!” 

So if you have an experience in an unhappy family, you can try to course correct and still end up unhappy in a different way. Whereas if you are in a happy family and truly reflect/acknowledge all the parts that make it happy, you learn how to develop and build a flourishing family!

The wisdom here isn’t to not take risks and not fail. But to learn and leverage from successes where you can, so that you can reach new frontiers and unpaved paths where the risks are necessary and failures are worth it.