The Moment He Stopped Hiding It
How did this failure redirect your path?
A weekly question to ponder what matters in your WorkLife.
Each question is drawn from the School of WorkLife Question Banks.
This is the question I want you to sit with today.
How did this failure redirect your path?
Let’s explore the question through a character I created.
James.
James is the main protagonist in the Story Lesson: How to Tell Your Story in Job Interviews.
His story is featured in The Stories Behind the Stories: James.
James’s story was told in WorkLife Stories: How to Tell Your Story in Job Interviews — if you haven’t already, reading that story will help you identify your own failure story and go deeper with this question.
James’s Failure Story
James’s failure was a software implementation that went wrong.
Not technically.
Humanly.
He had managed the project timeline perfectly.
And missed what the people around him actually needed.
But the question isn’t about the failure itself.
It’s about where it took him.
And to understand that — you have to understand the deeper failure.
Not the software implementation.
The silence.
James carried that story for eight months.
Into interview after interview.
And said nothing.
He believed showing the struggle would make him appear weak.
Unprofessional.
So he kept giving people the surface.
And they kept seeing exactly that.
The Deeper Failure
That night — after the interview that changed everything — James sat down and wrote.
He tried to understand what had happened.
Why it worked.
And he realised it wasn’t a technique.
It was honesty.
The real failure wasn’t the project.
It was eight months of silence about what that project had taught him.
That’s what the writing revealed.
And once he saw it — he couldn’t un-see it.
Recognition
In his new role, James noticed something in his team.
People were careful around failure.
Precise.
Defended.
Reluctant to name what had gone wrong.
James recognised it immediately.
He had done the same thing for eight months.
So he created something different.
A space where failure could be named without fear.
Where what went wrong wasn’t a liability.
It was the beginning of something useful.
The Learning
The lesson that lived inside the failure.
The learning that couldn’t have come any other way.
And could now be taken forward.
People who had worked together for years began sharing things they had never said out loud.
Not because James told them failure was safe to name.
Because he had shown them — with his own story — that it was.
Then came a cross-departmental strategy meeting.
Leaders trying to fix a failing digital transformation.
Everyone focused on the technical problem.
James asked one question.
Has anyone talked to the teams about what actually concerns them?
The room shifted.
That question came directly from his failure.
From the sales team who weren’t resisting change — they were afraid.
From the human timeline he had missed.
He couldn’t have asked it without having failed first.
Three Moments.
All of them the same redirection.
From assuming he knew what people needed.
To asking what they were actually experiencing.
The failure didn’t redirect his path the moment it happened.
It redirected his path the moment he stopped hiding it.
That’s worth sitting with.
Because sometimes the redirection has already happened.
The question is whether you’ve named it yet.
So the question isn’t just James’s.
It’s yours.
How did this failure redirect your path?
Today’s question is from Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity: Success, Failure and Passion Stories Question Bank — from the section Discovering Your Failure Story.
Deepen the practice with the WorkLife Compass Guided Programme:The Art of WorkLife Storytelling: Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity Programme Crafting Success, Failure, and Passion Narratives with Powerful Beginnings, Engaging Middles, and Memorable Endings
Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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