Earlier this month, I participated in a Silicon Valley junto lunch(which I really enjoyed) on the topic of failure. That experience drive the desire to do this session at She's Geeky.

How did it go?

We had about 35 women in a room, in a circle, talking about failure (and we created a safe space for that talk, agreeing we would not blog or twitter identifable details or names).

Some of the themes that emerged from the group:

• Failure can be either something you feel and do, so something others feel--and that you have no control over.
• One of the hard things about failure is managing others' expectations, along with your own.
• Without being willing to fail, there is no risk, without risk, no edge and much slower growth.
• How does women's perfectionism tap into reactions about failure?
• Don' t we need to evolve to the point where for us--like little kids learning to walk--multiple failures are accepted and we move on from them?
• There is no test of whether you are good enough to do something, just do it.
• You learn from every failure, even if it hurts like hell.
• One fear of failure is being exposed and ridiculed in public, or by your family/friends.
• Another is hating yourself for what you could have done differently, or could have done better.
• Blame and shame are things to get past; you learn ALOT from not succeeding

There were a number of personal stories and lots of intense discussion; this was such a good dialogue, thank you all!