Why we all need to fail before we can be winners As Henman crashes out of Wimbledon, top psychologists explain why losing has created some of the world's most powerful people 1ST Edition

• Published in: Daily mail (London, England)
• Main Author: Narayan, Natasha
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Solo Syndication, a division of Associated Newspapers Ltd 09.07.2001
• Subjects: Blair, Tony; Churchill, Winston S; Dyke, Greg; Henman, Tim; Portillo, Michael
• ISSN: 0307-7578

In common with many who go on to achieve power, [Madonna] and [Michael Portillo] are classic examples of what psychologists call a 'rebound personality'. Such people do not see failure as something that marks them permanently. Still less do they see it as a defeat. Instead, rebound personalities are renewed, even inspired, by failure. 'So an entrepreneur who goes bankrupt may say "I've invested in a bad product", not "I am a bad product." If you actually label yourself as "a failure", it is very, very difficult to pull yourself out of whatever pit you are in.' Unhappily, many of us do tell ourselves that we are failures. Ben Ren-shaw, coordinator of the Happiness Project and author of the bestseller Successful But Something Missing, says that the words 'I'm not good enough' are the 'root cause of more feelings of failure, rejection, despondency and anxiety than any other thought'. [Anthony Storr] says: 'It is probable that Britain owed her survival in 1940 to [Winston Churchill]'s inner world of make-believe. Only a man who believed, in spite of all the evidence, he could yet triumph could have conveyed his inspiration to others.' As well as an ability to see even the greatest failure as a challenge, rebound personalities have what [Peter Clough] terms 'stickability'.