“My father was always around,” Scott said. “I’m not sure that was such a great thing, either.” And wanted to immediately take back the words. Regretting the thought as much as having expressed it.
“Sage said he was pretty strict on you.”
For his own good. Scott had misled her. Had to correct the image of the man who’d made him the success he was. And who’d always loved him. “He had high standards but lived by example.”
Iris nodded, glanced toward her toes as she said, “And failure wasn’t an option.”
Had he told her that? Had Sage?
“The man was a self-made millionaire. Started investing small amounts while he was still in high school. He had a gift. Just knew what would work and what wouldn’t. Growing up, I witnessed these powerful people coming into our home to ask him for advice. He could have made millions at consulting, but he did it for free. For people who he knew would use his help to better the world. That’s what it was all about for him. Using the life you’d been given to make the world a better place,not to litter it. So, yeah, failure wasn’t an option. Except as a lesson to do better. Be better.”
“Failure is a part of life.” Iris’s words fell softly into the dimly lit night. “If children aren’t allowed to fail, they’re at risk for developing an inability to try. Think about learning to walk. If a toddler had to fear failure, they’d never try again after the first time or two they took a step and dropped to their butt. You have any idea how many tries it takes to learn to walk?”
He didn’t. But the passion in her words drew his gaze to her face. “For some, maybe as many as it’s taking me to master surfing?”
Her eyes widened, as though something was dawning on her. He wanted to know what. Didn’t feel free to pursue the knowledge. They were talking, sharing in ways they never had before, but there were still boundaries. To him, it seemed like very clear ones. He went where he was welcome. Stayed silent where he was not.
How he knew the difference, he couldn’t say.
Maybe because he’d spent so many years reading juries, he’d developed decent people-reading skills.
He liked the thought.
“You surf because you’d rather risk killing yourself than to accept that failure is a part of life. Fear of failure drives you.”
His shrug was easy. “I’m good with that. As long as what I’m driven to do helps make the world a better place.” He was Randolph Martin’s son. The legacy he strove to live up to was a great one.
“Right, but if you don’t learn to fail, if you can’t be okay with not succeeding at everything you do, you don’t allow yourself to try things that you think you aren’t good at.”
The words, so quietly delivered, hit him hard. He had an argument to them. He could always argue another side.
Iris kept talking before he got there. “It’s like the child learning to walk. You don’t remember being that child, but imagine him, pulling himself up to a couch, and immediately falling back down hard to his butt. He’s too young to understand failure, so he tries again. He sees something he wants and strives to take a step toward it but falls again. Maybe even so hard he hurts himself. He cries. Hard. He’s coddled. Because failure is a valid possibility. One that doesn’t define the child in any way. And when he’s ready to try again, he’s encouraged to do so. And if he falls, if he fails again, he’s loved, not berated. Not met with disappointment. He’s met with pride because he tried…”
They weren’t talking about him. The passion in Iris’s voice…
“And if it turns out he just doesn’t have that physical capability, or that particular talent, he’s not a failure, Scott. He just failed at an attempt at something. He learns from it. And, if he has the learning, he becomes a better person for it. At least he tried. And tried again.”
Exactly. His surfing was that. Trying and trying again. Not that he failed at it. He just wasn’t the best.
“But you…you have one failure and sentence yourself for life.”
What the hell…?
His face getting hot, Scott was ready to call it a night. The conversation was no longer friendly.
“All I’m saying is that failure, in and of itself, isn’t a negative thing. Sometimes it’s a stepping stone toward success. But if you’re unable to accept an initial failure, you’ll never take a second step.”
Yep. He was done. Looked toward his chair, bracing his hand on the mattress for a push off.
“It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”
Iris’s tone hadn’t changed, in volume or timbre. But the words stopped Scott’s exit trajectory long enough for him to turn and look at her. To get out of his own space and back into the shared one where he’d sensed that Iris was speaking from experience.
“How so?” he asked.
Nodding toward her feet, she said, “I was hospitalized for six months after the car accident that killed my sister. Among other things, I had a spinal cord injury, and I was told I might never walk again…”
The child, learning to walk, hadn’t been him. Nor had it been a child.
