full
Success Is 10,000 Micro-Failures in a Row
In this episode, I’m breaking down why we need to stop looking at success as a straight line and start seeing it for what it actually is: an exercise in 10,000 micro-failures. Inspired by a story from former NASA engineer Mark Rober about how they get a rover to Mars, I explore the concept of "mouse farts"—the tiny course corrections that keep a mission from drifting millions of miles off target.
I talk about why the difference between reaching your destination and giving up usually comes down to how you handle those inevitable moments when you've veered off track. If you’re feeling like you’ve hit a wall or made a wrong turn, join me as I explain why that isn't the end of the road—it’s just time for a little course correction.//
Welcome to The Ray J. Green Show, your destination for tips on sales, strategy, and self-mastery from an operator, not a guru.
About Ray:
→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.
→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.
→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com
→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.
→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com
//
Follow Ray on:
Transcript
Success is just 10,000 micro-failures in a row. And if you don't get that, you're going to quit way too early. My kids love Mark Rober—he's a former NASA engineer and he does these really wild science videos and they're really fun. I was watching him on Chris Williamson’s podcast, "Modern Wisdom," and he talked about working on the Mars rover, because he actually did some work on that when they sent it over.
And it kind of blew my mind: when NASA sends a rover to Mars, they're not aiming at where Mars is right now. They're actually aiming at where Mars is going to be nine months from now when they launch that thing. So they have to project it out based on all the orbital math—or whatever you call it—that goes into it and shoot it towards where Mars is going to be.
As the rover is traveling, if it drifts off course by like a fraction of a percent—the tiniest amount—that tiny deviation over millions of miles means that it ends up 10,000, 100,000, or a million miles off target. Just by being off just by a hair.
So they build in these little thrusters. And every time the rover starts to veer a little bit off track, the thrusters fire—pssh—and nudge it back on course. That’s my thruster sound. NASA actually calls that a "mouse fart"—that sound that I made. I don't know the actual sound; I've not seen the rover. But that's the actual term that they use: "We had a mouse fart it back on course".
And as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, "Sending the rover to Mars is really just like an exercise in 10,000 micro-failures". Like 10,000 times where it goes off track and it's not on target and it has to be corrected over and over and over until it finally gets there.
And if you think about it, that's really what success is. We look at success at the end and we look backwards and we think, "Oh my God, that's incredible," like it was a linear, you know, to the right and up straight line. And we look at like, you know, the rover getting to Mars, like, "Hey, high five". But you don't necessarily see the 10,000 times that it was off track and all of the times that it had to be corrected with a mouse fart along the way.
In life, that's what success looks like. Success looks cool at the end—it's landing the rover on Mars—but it's really just a shitload of mistakes that get you there. And the things that you try that don't work; all the decisions that you make and then realize you've got to go undo them or you've got to go back and correct them. All the people that you hire only to find out, "This is the wrong fit, this isn't going to work," and you've got to make a change.
But you keep adjusting. You keep going. You get back up; you "mouse fart" it back on track. And we all have our own little mouse fart systems that are built in to course-correct and get us back on track.
Or not, right? Some people have better course-correction systems than others. And some people get a little off track and they give up and say, "Hey, this is unachievable, I'm not going to make it, so, you know, it's over". And those micro-failures become the absolute failure. And that's what real failure is; that's the ultimate failure because you say, "Fuck it, it's not going to work, we're done".
Meanwhile, somebody else says, "Ah, I'm off track, that didn't work, let me mouse fart this back on the right path". That is the difference between success and true failure. True failure isn't the micro-failures along the way that everybody encounters that are basically expected; they are part of the path. Like the rover going to Mars, you know it's going to go off track. That is not a failure. It's only a failure when you don't use the thrusters to push it back on track.
The next time you're off track, the next time you hit a speed bump, the next time you hit a wall, right? Or it's a decision that you've got to course-correct or something like that. The next time that happens, just remember: it's probably just a micro-failure. The only way that you're going to turn it into a true failure is if you give up. And I know as cliché as it sounds, but when you zoom out and you think of it as, "I'm just a few millimeters off track, I'm just going to mouse fart this back onto the path and actually get to the finish line," then you actually get to your destination.
So, I hope it helps. Adios.
