In one of my conversations with a mentor—someone I often turn to with both my celebrations and challenges—I asked him: “What is the most unique and revolutionary advice you will give to me?”
His response was something I couldnt believe at first: “Keep a failure résumé alongside your professional one.”
I was thrilled by the idea. It felt radical, almost counterintuitive. Why would anyone want to carefully record all the things that didn’t work out—the wrong decisions, the rejections, the opportunities missed, the job applications that went nowhere, even the relationships that slipped through our hands? But as he explained, the point wasn’t to shame myself with failures.
It was to create a living record of lessons, to see not just what I achieved but how I grew through what I lost.
A failure résumé should hold the ideas that never materialized, the timely decisions we hesitated to take, the roads we turned away from. Each one is not an endpoint but a marker of learning, resilience, and evolution.
The more I reflected, the more I realized how powerful this practice could be. Most of us only document our achievements, polishing them into neat bullet points. But if we also write down our failures with equal intention, something profound happens:
- Failure shifts from being a personal flaw to a data point.
- We begin to notice patterns in our decision-making and growth.
- Resilience stops being abstract—it becomes visible in the way we keep moving.
- Humility and ambition start to balance one another.
- And most beautifully, we begin to see how yesterday’s “losses” quietly paved the way for today’s opportunities.
I now see that my failure résumé may end up being a deeper guide to who I am than my polished success résumé.
Very few people keep such a record. But for those who do, it is more than a résumé. It is a mirror—one that reflects not only what we have achieved, but who we have become in the process.
#LeadershipDiary