Doubling Down and Failing Forward
Doubling Down and Failing Forward
As a personal finance blogger, physician, and entrepreneur, I have spent much time contemplating the keys to success. Success in finances. Success in business. What is the secret sauce that makes some perform inherently better than others? There is no question that front-loading and momentum play a role. You all know how I feel about bringing the B game. Yet, there are still some quintessential traits that I have failed to touch upon. I’m not sure where I first heard the term failing forward. I think it was a ChooseFI episode.
We are also very familiar with the concept of doubling down. Look no further than our current political arena and you will know what I mean. Although doubling down may have a negative connotation in certain settings, I have found it one of the keys to success in almost any field.
Doubling down and failing forward.
The new recipe for winning?
Failing Forward
There is no hiding the fact that I am a seven-figure failure. My early years were characterized by loss after loss. I had a learning disability. I was less than average at sports. My first foray into the world of business was a speculative play that netted huge losses of capital and a large overstock of useless product.
It is safe to say, that the resume of any great achiever is littered with failures. And, in fact, the same can be said for those who are completely unaccomplished.
So what’s the difference?
Successful people practice at failing forward. They use their defeat to push the ball closer to the end zone. They grow from each missed turn, and learn how to prevent mistakes before they happen again in the future. They maintain momentum.
Resilience is one of the keys to failing forward. If they can’t make it up the hill, they find a secret passage through the middle. If the there is no secret passage, they double back, recheck the footholds, and try again.
They don’t fall backward, they fail forward.
Doubling Down
Although used often in the political arena, I prefer the original definition:
Double Down:(in blackjack) double a bet after seeing one’s initial cards, with the requirement that one additional card be drawn.
When I started working for a community hospital at the beginning of my career, the other Docs told me that I would never earn a bonus. According to them, the amount of work was impossible. Although I truly believed them at the time, I decided to make a go at it anyway.
A year later, I doubled my salary with bonuses. So, of course, it was time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Right?
Actually. I did the exact opposite. I doubled down. I picked up a few more hours at the office. I developed a number of lazy side hustles, and finally started my own concierge practice. Eventually, my salary rocketed to over five times where I started from.
I have seen this trait often among high achievers. The taste of success propels them to work even harder, hustle even more, and take advantage of all forthcoming opportunities spurred by the original success.
Final Thoughts
There are many paths to financial freedom, happiness, and success in whatever endeavor one chooses to pursue. Among the many important traits of highly achieving people, I have found doubling down and failing forward to be a big part of the maker tool kit.
We all face similar hurdles. We leap over some and we stumble on others.
When you find a technique that works, by all means, double down.
And when you trip and fall. Not only fall forward, but fail forward too.
How about you? Any examples of doubling down or failing forward you care to share? Drop us a line in the comments.
This is so true! The biggest problem however is that many of us give up after encountering challenges or failures. The biggest thing I’ve learned in my almost 30 years on the planet, is that challenges build character, which eventually help you to learn the things that will help you become successful…. If you quit, you are locking in your failure!
5 years ago, i had a masters degree and no job. My wife and i were $40,000 in debt, and lived on her $24,000 a year salary. Today we have a multiple six figure net worth and make a solid six figure income. Moral of the story, no situation is permanent. You just have to keep stuggling and making gradual progress toward your goals.
Here is our starting point, if you have sometime to read… https://halflifetheory.com/dead-broke-deadbeat-my-starting-point/
It looks like you have made failing forward a way of life!
You can double down as long as it doesn’t kill you. In other words if there is only a slim chance of success and doubling down will put you far in debt buyer beware! I used to trade commodities. You make money in commodities by winning more often than loosing. There will for sure be loosing. Commodities are leveraged and subject to margin call meaning if the market goes against you, even though in the long term your trade may have been the right move, in the short term the margin call can put you in debt or cancel the trade at a loss. Doubling down can put you double in debt. This is why Hillary never lost money in her cattle trade. It was a good trade eventually, but it went into margin early. Someone else paid the margin call and kept the trade alive till eventually it became a winner. Heads I win tails I win. Nice work if you can get it.
I have often made deals just so I understand the moving parts, risk, how I can get screwed, and exit strategy. I’m willing to risk a little to gain a lot of knowledge. There’s always legal stuff and lurking unknown risk to discover. These are the things I need to know. I have considered for example crowd funded real estate, but for me the risk is likely more than I need given my retirement. If I was still working and could easily replace the loss I would probably give it a whirl. Sometimes don’t fall trumps fall forward.
I had pain management as a side hustle. I was able to offer a consult service run out of a same day or hospital so I didn’t have an office overhead and I limited my service to blocks so I did’t need to deal with drug management, post op surgical and all of that rigmarole. The facility had all the radiology I needed, block trays and anti-inflammatorys and local. It gave local physicians somewhere to send their patients, I did the diagnosis, treated what fit the scope of my practice and sent the patient back to the referring physician tuned up. Docs knew to get an MRI, take the pt off anticoag etc before they showed up so it wasn’t ten office visits getting the job done. If the patient needed surgery they got referred ready to go in consultation with the referring doc. I saw about 10 people a day, 4 days a week, 2 hours a day, in the afternoons. In house consults were transported to see me in the treatment room. Patients got served, referring docs got served, the facility got served. Office visits were minimized. I practiced standard of care no wallet biopsy medicine. That 10 hours a week doubled my money with virtually no delta in overhead. I think malpractice was about 3K extra.
It sounds like you set yourself up nicely in the clinic. As so often, likely this success came after failing forward and doubling down for years at your main hustle till you figured out the right path.
Only have to be careful that doubling down doesn’t wear you out! Some people seem to have an insatiable appetite for what they do and doubling down gives them energy. Others do so at their own peril and risk of burnout.
I am not sure what makes some resilient and others not so resilient. It definitely is a characteristic that fights burnout, but I am not sure how nature versus nurture resilience is. Can we teach it to others? Is it a learned trait?
I completely agree that this secret sauce is what propels successful people forward, though.
I think doubling down early in the game, or front loading the sacrifice is the important part.
I think it’s a function of fear and risk analysis and good data on which to make predictions. After you fail a few times and don’t die things become clearer
Great lessons and I totally agree with your central points. I would add a couple of thoughts…
First doubling down is a great policy in some instances, but you have to be careful where you apply it. That extra time and energy has to come from somewhere and you have to be careful your hunger for success doesn’t cost you in other areas of your life (ie your relationship with your family)
Second, you’re dead on in your assertion that successful people persevere in the face of failure, but this only works if you learn from your failures and adjust. Trying the same process again and again doesn’t necessarily move you closer to success.
-Ray
Hey Ray, good points. I think these rules work especially at the beginning of your career where you are really trying to establish yourself.
Failing forward is an “in vogue” term in the tech sector now. Also “fail fast, fail often”, which sounds counter intuitive but comes from the start-up culture of just getting past what doesn’t work to get to what does.
I had never heard the term until recently.
Well I have gotten to the point of questioning what the heck “failure” even means?!! There have been so many times ppl think things are successsful and it doesn’t look anything like success to me.
I have seen too many twists in my own life and many others and it’s become hard to classify anything as a failure/ success anymore.
Maybe the issue is with defining life in such binary terms.
True. It’s a spectrum. Blogs are a great example. What makes a blog successful?
What makes a blog successful? Synchronicity?
Good commenters!