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Is failure really failure?

Or is it a prelude to – and requirement of – success?

The July/August Fast Company profile of Al Gore’s dramatic second act provides some good food for thought.

The cover has a little fun teasing us (learn how he went from loser to winner) and it’s certainly a compelling hook. We all love tales of redemption. But why? I think in part it’s because they fool us into thinking we can somehow learn enough vicariously to avoid our own setbacks and just skip ahead to the cool, fun success part. We can’t.

The reason we ultimately succeed is because we have failed first (and learned from it). Period.

Politics aside, Gore 2.0 has garnered applause, wealth, recognition, praise and fame for following his passions and confidently articulating who he is and what he cares about…things he struggled with mightily as a presidential candidate. Remove the failure of losing the election from the equation and that simply wouldn’t be the case.