The moment people stop looking at failure as a learning experience is the moment we become discouraged. Failure is looked at as total defeat and a reason to give up. Sarah Lewis gives a perfect example of the this in The Rise with the story of Ben Saunders and his journey to the North Pole. Ben Saunders continued to fail, constantly taking steps away from success. Surrendering to failure is essential to being successful. The only way to surrender to failure is to look at failure as a learning experience and nothing more.
Ben Saunders was an amazing explorer who traveled to the North Pole. Although he was not successful the first few times, he decided not to give up and to keep pursuing his goals. When one comes across an obstacle between them and their goals, they must be prepared to overcome the obstacles to be successful. If we are not willing
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Lewis mentions Aikido and the importance of this martial art. The martial art is based on not attacking but surrendering to an attack and coming back stronger. Lewis says, “The power in the martial art of aikido comes from strategic nonresistance” (71). This quote is important because the natural response to people fighting isn’t to surrender but to fight back. With the art of aikido one must remember to surrender to an opponent’s attack to come back stronger. Sometimes one may feel like they are being attacked with failure after failure. It is up to the person to respond to these failures with the same sense of the martial art of aikido. One must learn from these failures to come back stronger. This is what Ben Saunders did on his journey to the North Pole. Failure seemed inevitable the first 2 times but that wasn’t going to stop him. This wouldn’t stop Saunders because failure was just a learning experience. The failures he experiences was just preparation for the success. This explains why it is not always about the destination but about the journey it took to get