The Subtle Art of Failure

As we push off the wall and swim the final laps of 2025, reflection becomes unavoidable. The instinct is to tally our wins and polish them into neat year-end reports. But perhaps the more courageous act is to lean into the failures – the ideas that faltered, the messages that didn’t land, the strategies that stalled.

Mark Manson, in his bold orange book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F#ck, speaks to the failure/success paradox: improvement is built on repeated failure. Success is not the absence of mistakes, but their accumulation, reframed as learning.

Failure, then, is not a verdict. It’s a curriculum.

It takes a certain kind of brilliance to fail. Failure only comes when we stretch into spaces that are unfamiliar, risky, or ambitious. In PR and communications, failure can be the campaign that didn’t cut through, the story the media didn’t pick up, the bold opinion that sparked resistance before it built traction. These moments sting, but they also reveal the edges of possibility.

Without the willingness to fail, we confine ourselves to the safe and predictable. And in a noisy, hyper-competitive world, safety is often indistinguishable from silence.

There’s a dangerous myth in communications: that strong reputations are spotless. The reality is the opposite. The brands, leaders, and businesses we admire most are those that have weathered storms, acknowledged missteps, and grown stronger because of them. Vulnerability, when communicated with honesty, creates trust. Perfection rarely does.

So perhaps the question isn’t “Did we fail?” but rather “Did we fail visibly, openly, and in a way that allows others to learn with us?”

Great communicators don’t just accept failure; they design for it. They test multiple messages, knowing some will miss. They experiment with platforms, aware that not all will gain traction. They listen more deeply when feedback is critical. Each so-called failure is data, and that data makes the next message sharper, more human, and more likely to resonate.

Failure, in this sense, becomes a strategy for transformation.

As you look back on 2025, don’t edit out the failures in favour of a neat success narrative. Ask instead:

Which “failures” became turning points?

Where did a setback force us to clarify our message or re-evaluate our priorities?

Which missed opportunities taught us more than a safe win ever could?

The paradox is clear: failure is not the opposite of success, but its prerequisite. In PR, in business, and in life, it is the rough draft of brilliance.

So, as we swim these final laps of 2025, may we honour both our wins and our failures. And may we enter 2026 not afraid to fail again,  but afraid of never daring enough to try.