Those who are excellent at their work have learned to comfortably coexist with failure. The excellent fail more often than the mediocre.
They begin more. They attempt more. They attack more. Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes.
The exceptional artist throws away hundreds of photographs. The exceptional writer wears out the eraser. The exceptional investor puts money into losing ventures. If every risk you take pays off, then you probably aren't actually taking risks. We don't want to excuse recklessness and foolishness as "just taking risks," but we should understand that those who have build true excellence in their lives are always fighting at the edges of their ability.
What distinguishes the exceptional from the unexceptional? A willingness to fail, and an exceptional ability to learn from every failure.
From "Resilience" by Eric Greitens