10/3/2026
We are all familiar with the Chinese saying 失败是成功之母 (Shībài shì chénggōng zhī mǔ): “Failure is the mother of success.”
Today, I heard another saying that challenges this idea: “Success is the mother of success.” In other words, small successes build confidence, develop skills, and pave the way for greater achievements.
But what about failure? I also heard this saying: 最好的失败是别人的失败 (Zuì hǎo de shībài shì biérén de shībài): “The best failure is someone else’s failure.”
Because we can learn from other people's mistakes without having to pay the price ourselves.
This reminds me of another saying: “Learn from other people's mistakes.” It also brings to mind a relative of mine who tried to shield her son from the unpleasant realities of life when he was growing up. But that's another story.
I like the idea that the best failure is someone else's. Here is why.
First, failure can be an expensive teacher.
When we make mistakes, we may gain wisdom, but we also pay a price: lost money, wasted time, damaged relationships, embarrassment, or missed opportunities.
When someone else makes a mistake, we have an opportunity to learn the same lesson without suffering the same consequences. In that sense, other people's failures offer us free lessons—if we pay attention.
Second, we often underestimate how easily we could make the same mistakes.
When we see someone else make a poor decision, we may think, “I'm smarter than that. I would never do such a thing.”
But life is rarely that simple. We may lack the information the other person lacked, face similar pressures, or fall into the same trap under different circumstances.
To learn from someone else's failure, we need to ask ourselves:
What exactly went wrong?
What did the person fail to notice?
Which assumptions turned out to be wrong?
What might I have done in the same situation?
Under what circumstances could I make the same mistake?
The goal is not to judge the person who failed, but to understand what happened and what we can learn from it.
A biography, documentary, memoir, or even a friend's unfortunate experience can offer us something valuable: borrowed experience. We cannot live every life or make every mistake, but we can learn from the lives and mistakes of others.
Perhaps the best kind of wisdom is learning a lesson without having to suffer its consequences ourselves.
The best part is we don't have to experience every failure personally to become wiser.
