But that airline pilot has been failing on a regular basis for years.
He learned to fly in a little single engine plane, and routinely recovered it from stalls and even spins. His instructor would have him close his eyes, then throw the plane out of balance and have him attempt to correct it by feel (and he'd often fail to do so). He's crashed that very jet you're riding in dozens or even hundreds of times in the simulator. He's even recovered a real one from a stall during his certification.
The only reason he's good enough to be trusted to fly with you in the back is because he's been training to failure all those years.
Actually he failed, we could say that he crashed the plane into the Hudson River. It's a matter of measure. If he ever do it again, he might do even better ;).
I think that we improve continuously from failure into something that looks more and more like success. Success is very relative to what you are able to accomplish at a time. If failing teach you something, might be it's a success ?
It's safer to think of success as a step in a potentially endless process. Microsoft (as an example) treated IE6 as an end, and it cost them substantial market share while they tried to catch up to the new entrant.
He learned to fly in a little single engine plane, and routinely recovered it from stalls and even spins. His instructor would have him close his eyes, then throw the plane out of balance and have him attempt to correct it by feel (and he'd often fail to do so). He's crashed that very jet you're riding in dozens or even hundreds of times in the simulator. He's even recovered a real one from a stall during his certification.
The only reason he's good enough to be trusted to fly with you in the back is because he's been training to failure all those years.