Winston Churchill – for all of his successes and for all of his ageless words of wisdom – didn’t always learn from his failures or take his own advice.

After World War II, Churchill lost power. Rather than ceding to his “good honour and good sense”, he didn’t pivot to the next challenge, but rather doubled down on trying to reclaim power.

And though he succeeded, his success was short lived and he ultimately hurt his own standing – his own credibility – to do what he felt needed to be done.

The lesson here: Failure can follow success – and even when we think we don’t need help anymore, we almost always do.

As Hal Kvisle says, “I’ve had a long career in business and I’ve always been amazed that the learning process never ends.”

He’s right.

Why? Because, with time and experience, we learn that even establish, credible and innovative leaders can overstay their welcome.

They can end up hurting the cause they seek to help. Their ideas might not be wrong – their process might not be wrong – but their time may have come and gone. Which can be as sad as it is correct.

And that brings me to my last point: We’re all human.

Sometimes when we fail, we should know better. Sometimes when we fail, we did the best we could. Sometimes when we fail, we learn and succeed next time. And sometimes after we succeed, we find a way to fail.

No matter: In most cases of failure, we need to cut others – and ourselves – some slack.

“We talk about failure as this kind of theoretical concept. But when you’re going through a failure, it’s really, really hard. And, so, I don’t think we actually talk about the reality of failure in a real way.” – Ilona Dougherty | Youth Researcher & Advocate

“It’s okay to fail. And it’s okay to be who you are. Because I know when I was starting as an artist, and when I was younger, I wasn’t confident and I had a lot of self-esteem issues.” – Camilla d’Errico | Artist

“It’s healthy to learn but I don’t know if it’s healthy to keep labeling where you failed or not. Just constantly be growing and learning about yourself and knowing where you do well. And then where things didn’t go the way you wanted them to go or where you thought you had something to learn, learn from it. Learn without punishing yourself; learn without feeling bad or guilty.” – Dr. Aleem Bharwani | Cumming School of Medicine

“A lot of times, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough or it wasn’t making a big enough difference. I felt like I did a lot of spreading the message, but not enough tangible action.” – Miranda Andersen | Youth Leader & Filmmaker

“Don’t be so heavy on yourself. Give yourself some credit.” – Jim Bottomley | Futurist

“We need to be nicer to ourselves. We need to stop abusing ourselves mentally and stop saying: ‘You’re the worst! You suck!’ Maybe this doesn’t apply for everybody, but it would apply to me: Be nicer to yourself. And celebrate your wins and learn from your losses.” – Camilla d’Errico | Artist

“Even though we had a terrible defeat in 1993, it didn’t destroy me. And political defeat won’t kill you. I’m really touched by how many people have said to me: ‘I was in grade eight when you became prime minister and I just thought it was so great’. Or, ‘I was in university and it was like the biggest deal and it was so wonderful’. And they didn’t then say: ‘And then you lost and I felt terrible’. What they remembered was that I had made that breakthrough. And, so, a woman being prime minister is no longer hypothetical. It’s a reality.” – Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell | Former Prime Minister

“You don’t have to be an A-roll student. If you believe in what you’re doing and you have the passion for what you love, you’re going to pursue it and you’re going to succeed. Because success is persevering through all your failure. And once you fail, you’re going learn to get up and keep moving on.” – Paula Huddy | Educator

“Have patience with yourself.” – Marie-Eve Marchand | Social Innovator

At the end of the day, all we can do is try – fail – and try better next time.

“Hard things are hard. There’s a Harvard sociologist that says everything in the middle looks like failure. If you’re going to take something on, know there’s going to be a lot of days where you don’t feel like you have the answer. I guarantee that.” – Salimah Ebrahim | Journalist & Entrepreneur

“But every big movement has taken a long time – a really long time. So, even if you’re taking some steps back those steps forward over a really long time, the few people that you do impact is going to make a difference, even if it doesn’t seem like it in the moment.” – Story Warren | Youth Leader & Scientist

“We need to be like a stream of water. You flow and you sort of naturally curve and you move around different objects. In the short term, it just looks like you’re passive and just moving around things. But over time, water is one of the most powerful forces in nature. It erodes and it changes the structures around it in the long term. And, so, I think by being like water, we’re moving around objects, we’re being agile, but we’re making significant long-term change. And I think if we all do that, what’s more powerful than a large body of water?” – Dr. Aleem Bharwani | Cumming School of Medicine

“And I think to see it big picture, in generations, makes it easier when you do have your dark days, when there are the failures, when it seems like no one cares about what you care about. But they’re there. They might be your ancestors or they might be the next generation and you’re going to pass it to them. But they’re there. You’re not going to drop it.” – Barb Cartwright | Welfare Advocate

“You can’t give up. So, you can be set back, but you need to keep moving forward if there’s something that you really believe in.” – Dawna Friesen | TV News Anchor

And though it’s our tendency, we can’t judge our failures against the successes of others.

As youth advocate and trained historian Jane Thompson tells us:

“Getting a little reality check into social media and that thing that lots of people have said, but it’s hard to internalize: You are watching everybody else’s highlight reel and you’re thinking about your own raw footage. And we’ve got to understand that. Everybody’s failing. It’s just part of the whole texture of things.”

Jane’s right. Those celebrating success have failed – or will fail – even if that doesn’t make their highlight reel.

“You know what? Nobody gets through this unscathed. Everybody is going to fall down sometimes.” – Jane Thompson | Youth Advocate

“Everyone has these things they have to overcome in some way. And I just want to say to any young person: No one has it all. All the leaders I talked to have fears. We all have fears. We’re all human beings.” – Jim Bottomley | Futurist

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” – Jimmy Pattison | Business Leader 

“It’s always easier in hindsight to look back.” – Mike Farnworth | BC Cabinet Minister

“All of us have weaknesses and wish that we could have conducted ourselves a little differently.” – Sam Sullivan | Former Mayor of Vancouver 

“You can achieve your goal and you can still have reflections or things you would like to have done better. And I think that’s really healthy.” – Salimah Ebrahim | Journalist & Entrepreneur

“The high points and low points. It’s all mixed in there together. But it’s tough to accept that.” – Jane Thompson | Youth Advocate

Which brings us back to the false quote: ‘Never, never, never give up’.

Life isn’t as easy or as simple as a quote on the wall.

“This work is not easy at all. At all. It comes down to supporting each other and being real.” – Ilona Dougherty | Youth Researcher & Advocate

“I definitely have had some dark moments. And really low emotional, intellectual states where I’ve just not wanted to even get out of bed. But I fundamentally recognize that for me, there is just this. That there is just one opportunity, one life to make a difference, to change things. I’m going to have low moments. I’m going to feel low. There will be times when I’m feeling lazy and just want to sit on the couch. But fundamentally there is just this one opportunity to change the world.” – Paul McIntyre-Royston | Fundraiser

“I’ll admit I get saddened by people being cynical or attacking the foundational ideas that we know that work. That depresses me, but it doesn’t depress me enough to derail me.” – Harvey Locke | Biodiversity Advocate

“You’ll have those dark moments. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have disappointing moments that affected you deeply. But what I’ve tried to do throughout my career is turn the page and try to get back on track. I believe that working positively and working with positive people can yield positive results.” – Brian Keating | Storyteller & Naturalist

“Be true to yourself. Believe in your instincts. If you’re told you can’t do something, or you’re too young, or you don’t have enough education, find a way to overcome those things. Don’t let that set you back.” – Dawna Friesen | TV News Anchor

“Don’t let people tell you that you can’t do anything. But, also, don’t expect it to come easy. The most important things in life are pretty hard to get. So don’t give up.” – Victoria Lukasik | Biologist

“If that person whose real gift is musical genius – a gift that can move hearts – doesn’t stick with that, then we have lost that gift.” – Jane Thompson | Youth Advocate

“Sadly, life is always going throw you balls of crap and you just never know how big it’s going to be. And life can kick you down. And how you continuously get back up? I feel like that’s always the choice: Get back up. And you might not know what happens after you get up, but it’s, like, get up!” – Karen Kun | Water Advocate & Entrepreneur

“I read a brochure that said Cadillac Fairview, which was the biggest real estate company in the world at the time, planned to turn Bramalea into Manhattan. And I thought, that I’d love to see. I called up the chief executive officer and said: ‘Can I have lunch with you?’ And he recognized a sucker and agreed. They took me to lunch. I didn’t have any questions. I didn’t know what I was doing. I asked them how much money they made. They refused to answer. I freaked out. I left the restaurant and went back thinking I’m going to get fired. And my editor said to me – and he was daunting man – ‘Brown, how did the story go?’ I said: ‘It was a disaster! I didn’t know what to ask him. They wouldn’t tell me how much money they made. I freaked out.’ And he goes: ‘Write that up. That’s the story’. Trying to take on these titans as a neophyte, that that was the story. So, he taught me that what actually happens is what’s important, as opposed to what’s supposed to happen.” – Ian Brown | Writer

“In the era of instant everything and Insta everything, we have this idea that if you have a bit of success on one day, that’s it: Problem solved, you can go away now. Movements don’t happen because you say: ‘I want this to become a movement’. Movements happen organically, but they are made up of moments. So, in terms of keeping momentum, well the word moment is part of momentum. So just keep those moments going – keep pushing, just chip away.” – Shachi Kurl | Pollster 

“It’s about moving forward and keeping on going.” – Dev Aujla | Author & Changemaker

To do so, it helps to understand failure – good failure and bad failure – and learn from both.

It helps to learn how to celebrate failure, but not lionize or fixate on it either.

It helps to find the right mentors to help us know when to embrace failure in “good honour and good sense” and when to “never give in”; to remind us that success can easily lead to failure and failure can easily lead to success. 

But mostly, it helps to remember we are more resilient than we think. And we’re even more so when we make choices that fortify our resiliency.

“I try not to take my losses personally, just as I don’t take my wins personally.” – Sam Sullivan | Former Mayor of Vancouver

“I don’t let the things that start bugging or nitpicking at me to control my life. I try to choose happiness when I can. There are so many times in life where you could let a little thing get you down. If you can choose otherwise, you can often be happier and I think that’s part of the reason why I haven’t burnt out.” – Kyle Empringham | Storyteller & Community Organizer

“Because mental health issues with folks who are doing this kind of work, burnout, those are serious issues. And we need to do a better job of supporting each other.” – Ilona Dougherty | Youth Researcher & Advocate

 “The set-up for burnout is to focus primarily on the destruction. It’s not psychologically motivating to keep looking at things that suck.” – Ken Wu | Environmentalist

“Am I smiling this morning? Why not? What is wrong? Work at the roots of that. Because if you want to make change, you have to be able to inspire change in other people. And if you can’t inspire change in other people it’s because there’s something wrong with you. Maybe take a day or two of not talking to people. Realize what you need yourself so you can inspire others.” – Marie-Eve Marchand | Social Innovator

“Take weekends off to get away from some of those negatives that we hear. Don’t listen to every tweet or Facebook post that’s out there. Do your own thing and celebrate your own thing.” – Brian Keating | Storyteller & Naturalist

“Whatever makes you happy? Do that!” – Shawn MacDonell | Creative Director & Hockey Scout

“This is it, so revel in the glory and the amazingness of nature, of humanity, of interpersonal relationships. It’s incredible. There’s seven billion other human souls, there’s countless trillion animal and cellular life in this world. And, so, all these amazing aspects – from the rocks, from the glass, from the light, whether self-generated or from the sun – it’s amazing. That’s totally a little bit of revelry in terms of existence, but what else you got?” – Paul McIntyre-Royston | Fundraiser

“Because if you do what makes you happy, and then the other person does that, and the other person does that…then we’re all freaking happy! It’s not a secret. It’s not a mystery. It’s not rocket science here. Just don’t be sad. Try really hard to not be sad. And then encourage other people to also not be sad and we will be in a much better place. Nature, whatever way you want to look at it: If you’re happy, the world’s going to be a better place for sure.” – Shawn MacDonell | Creative Director & Hockey Scout

Yet, what’s easy for one person is hard for the next. What helps one person endure and overcome, won’t be enough for the next.  

When facing failure, it’s easy to conflate a mistake – a failed idea even – with being a failed human being. But we must never give in to our worst demons. We must never see a challenge as so insurmountable that we can’t go on, implores youth advocate Ilona Dougherty.

“If I had learned earlier that I am enough? And what I can accomplish in a day, while being healthy and being true to who I am, is enough? Then it would have made my journey to do this incredible work, that I love every day, more sustainable. And I think I would have had more of an impact sooner. We need to remember that we are enough and that if we’re doing good things in the world, and trying our best, that that is enough.”

Ilona’s right, of course, but for some of us, even though we know we should hear and heed those words, we just can’t.

And if you’re that person, ask for help and just hold on.

“I was bullied a lot as a kid. So, 15 was a tough time because you really felt like that was going to be the rest of your life. What does that do? It can change your personality and change how you approach people. It can change how you interact with them, whether you trust them: That kind of thing. If I had known at 15 that this was going to be two more years and then things were going to change very much, maybe some of those things wouldn’t have weighed so heavily. And every kid is going through a version of that. So, if you’re going through bad times just know incredibly it doesn’t last.” – Shachi Kurl | Pollster

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a high school student or a famous pollster like Shachi Kurl or me: Now or later, we will all be knocked down. And no matter how bad it seems – no matter how hard it might seem right now – it will get better.

Which is why Winston Churchill’s best true quote is the one we need to hear more often:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Do.