Feb 15 • Weekly Mail
The lesson of the two arrows and failure to success
Stop making failure hurt twice.
Once is enough. Trust me.
Failure is going to happen.
It doesn't matter how good you are, or how hard you work.
You're going to get hit.
But often, it's not the first hit that does the real damage.
There's this old Buddhist parable about two arrows.
The first arrow is the painful event itself.
The failed product launch, the key employee leaving, the deal falling through.
That one hurts. There's no way around it.
But the second arrow is the one you shoot at yourself:
🏹 Denying the problem exists until it gets worse
🏹 Blaming your team instead of owning it
🏹 Replaying what "should have happened" on a loop
🏹 Refusing to adapt because your ego won't let you
The failure itself isn't the problem here.
It's how long you resist accepting it.
That's why all the best leaders are great at processing failure fast.
They don't waste weeks marinating in what could have been.
They just move.
This is how you can stop shooting that second arrow:
✅ Acknowledge what happened
↳ Say it out loud. To yourself. To your team. No spin.
✅ Focus on what you control now
↳ Yesterday's decisions are locked. Today's aren't.
✅ Ask "What does this teach me?"
↳ Every failure has data in it. Extract it.
✅ Communicate transparently
↳ Your team already knows something went wrong. Own it before rumors fill the gap.
I'm not saying you need to be okay with failure.
But don't doubt your pain by fighting reality.
The first arrow is inevitable.
The second one is a choice.
Source: FB
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The lesson of the two arrows and failure to success
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