Failure Must be handled by taking responsibility for the…
Page 215. Failure Must be handled by taking responsibility for the failure even if it’s objectively not your fault.
— from Failure & Resilience (Challenge/Failure/Perseverance/Accountability/Flexibility/Resilience) · Fortitude American Resilience in the Era of Outrage written by Dan Crenshaw
In the book
This mental strength is not only for the crisis; it makes ordinary life better too, raising your satisfaction and your performance because you act from your values instead of your fears. Psychologists call the belief in your own ability to meet whatever arises self-efficacy, and those who have it bounce back from failure precisely because they approach trouble asking "how do I handle this?" rather than "what could go wrong?" And there is a paradox worth holding here, one I have lived: take responsibility for a failure even when it is not objectively your fault — not because the blame is fair, but because responsibility is the only door to fixing it; the person who refuses it is left waiting, helplessly, for someone else to set things right. Hold that beside its necessary balance, though: you are not responsible for the things that genuinely were not yours. […] Lead with the response, not the event. Remember it is your resilience, not the adversity, that defines you — and that your response is the one thing you always control. Fail well. Take responsibility even when it isn't your fault; run the three black-box questions — what did I do, what could I have done, what will I do next time; then accept, learn, commit, and repair; taking that responsibility is not a burden but the very thing that turns into empowerment, control, and eventual success. Make yourself accountable on purpose. Volunteer for it rather than waiting to be caught, and use the plain power of knowing someone is watching — accountability to another keeps you honest when your own resolve wavers. […] I tell you this so you know that the man giving you all this advice has been flat on the pavement himself. And what brought me back was not luck and not cleverness; it was the plain decision to take responsibility, to treat the disaster as mine to fix — because the moment a thing is yours, it is within your power, and the fear of it loosens. So hear me on this. — Failure & Resilience (Challenge/Failure/Perseverance/Accountability/Flexibility/Resilience)