When my friend I Ling insisted that this whitewater paddling run would be excellent for beginners, I believed her, and that’s probably on me. After all, I Ling is the kind of paddle boarder who runs Class IV rapids and skips rope on the board for fun, and I am the kind of paddle boarder who tips over when a boat drives by a quarter mile away.
Still, I love adventures with I Ling, and I love rivers, so I recruited my friend Kristin to join us. “I’m sure there aren’t any rapids,” I said to Kristin, confident that no reasonable person would expect me, an actual middle aged lady with minimal athletic ability, to run a river standing up.
My first warning sign came when the instructor was making small talk with me, as we waited for I Ling and Kristin to suit up; discussing local rivers, she mentioned the Nantahala Falls, a Class III+ drop of about six feet between two boulders, the most consistent source of raft vs. river carnage in Western North Carolina.
“Right, so can you imagine running that rapid on a stand up paddleboard?” she said. “That’s about what we’ll be doing today.”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah, right!” I said. “That’s hysterical,” but when her face said, Why are you laughing? my gaze traveled with horror to the kneepads, elbow pads, shin pads and helmet set out for our use. I thought those were DECORATIVE!
Maybe I could have figured out a graceful exit (oh goodness I accidentally poked myself in the eye with a stick, go on without me), but then I Ling bounded up, beaming with joy, shouting something inspirational, and Kristin came in, athletic and grinning with anticipation, hooray for new adventures, and the instructor and I made a silent deal to pretend that this whole exchange didn’t happen, so as not to harsh anyone else’s buzz.
Let’s be clear: This is not a success story.
But also, it totally, totally is.
Don’t Forget To Fail
The design firm IDEO once did a comprehensive study of all its projects to see the difference between teams that succeeded, and teams that failed. Their finding?
Every project failed. At some point along the way, every project leader was convinced: this is a bust. The only difference was, some kept going afterwards.
So IDEO started teaching every team, at the start of every project, to expect failure; to cultivate a growth mindset, which is essentially a storytelling mindset, a mindset that says success is something that happens after the plot twists.
I sometimes think this is one of the most important things stories are here to teach us: expect setbacks. No one would line up at the box office to watch Mission: Guaranteed. We need stories, we crave stories, because stories remind us that the entire history of humans is essentially the same experience again and again: oh crap, oh no, oh shit, oh dear…
Which brings us back to me on the river, flailing my way downstream. At this point in the story, I’ve survived most of the run by dropping to my knees whenever the water turned white. There’s just one problem left, and it’s a big one: a genuine Class III, Radio Tower Falls, with a three foot drop and a line of boulders at the bottom. The guide scouts it for us, with instructions.
“Here’s what you do,” she said. “The hole runs just a little bit laterally. Approach on the right channel, then just before the drop, plant your blade hard left on the river bottom, and pivot right. You’ll spin around the boulder. However, if you do end up swimming, make sure you tuck and roll, or you’ll get stuck under the rocks at the bottom.”
I considered this advice carefully, and then asked the only question that made sense:
“Is it possible to skip?”
Sadly, no, on the Radio Tower rapid, as in most of life, we can’t skip the hard parts. And that’s a good thing. As IDEO and decades of research can attest, you can’t move the story forward unless you’re willing to fail. Setbacks are part of every story. It’s the setbacks that make the story possible.
It’s such a universal truth that it tilts towards cliche, but here’s the thing: most of us forget it. The older we get, the more times we’ve fallen down, the less likely we are to take risks. Neuroimaging shows that the part of the brain associated with risk taking literally shrinks as we get older; we become more willing to stay stuck in the faltering marriage, the frustrating job, the compromised situations, because we don’t want to fail.
It’s just as true for enterprises as it is for individuals, by the way. Mature companies are less likely to have breakthrough innovations, because they’re prioritizing “no matter what, don’t fall down.”
Which is, not coincidentally, the mantra that I was chanting to myself, as I pushed out onto the rapid.
“When Life Gets Stuck, Decide To Suck”
I approached the runup to the rapid as far to the right as I could. When my board started to buck with the force of the waves, I planted my paddle left of my board, dug in, and promptly went swimming. As did Kristin. And I Ling. And the instructor, too. Every one of us, dragging our paddle boards out of the water, staggering to shore.
As we got into the bus to shuttle back, I asked the instructor, what percentage of your paddlers swim that rapid?
“One hundred percent,” she said, and we all laughed.
I always forget, and things like that remind me. Failing isn’t something to be avoided. It’s something to go looking for. The only way our story gets stuck, the only way our life gets stuck, is when we stop being willing to fail.
When we’re trying to change our life, we think I need to be more successful. But if success seems really far off, here’s something simpler: aim for a failure. And here’s the best part: any failure will do.
Try a new sport when you’re clumsy, try to meditate when your brain doesn’t ever stop buzzing; make a cake or a curry for the first time; pick up a new musical instrument; sign up on a dating app and see how many rejections you can collect in one week; send an op-ed into the local paper; plant something in your garden; apply for a job that’s totally out of your league; try a new TikTok dance.
Every single time you fail, you rewire your brain, you reset your narrative: this is just part of the story. You become less fearful, and more resilient. Your whole story changes.
The world becomes so interesting when you look around and say, what can I do badly? And even more interesting when you realize that every time you fail, you’re just setting yourself up for what lives on the other side of failure:
Transformation.
I mean, I don’t think Nike would ever put it in an ad campaign, but maybe they should:
Just Be Terrible
Eighteen years since I first steered my kayak straight into the rocks, my whitewater skills remain firmly categorized as primarily metaphorical. Still, I keep trying.
Flush from our adventure on the Nolichucky, Kristin and I decided to take our SUPs out on the French Broad one evening. It seemed a straightforward outing, paddling through downtown Asheville, between a greenway and a row of breweries, on a section of river so tame that toddlers captain their own craft. Yet, the excursion ended with me and Kristin lost in the dark, under a bridge, calling Steve to come rescue us. (“But…the river only goes one direction,” he said, confused. “How are you lost?”) When he arrived to find me hopping towards him on one foot, with a dog poop bag tied around my instep to staunch the bleeding, his only response was a shocked, “How is this even possible?”
So if you’re wondering, what will Robyn be doing this summer, the answer is, whatever I’m doing, odds are I will be doing it quite badly. And that’s just fine with me.
After all, every failure, every setback, is all a different way of telling the same story:
Anything is possible.
This story is still going strong.
.
This is one chapter in a year-long saga of love, grief, and the stories we tell to survive it all. To find out how it began, go here. Or subscribe for free to get a new chapter every week.
Yikes! You are a
I h braver woman than me—- no surprise 👏👏
What a fun entry!