The Bald Eagle is a symbol for power, strength, courage and success, yet few people know that a majority of their time is spent famished with failure. Indeed, when hunting, the eagle fails to catch their prey 90% of the time.

While this story is one of inspiration, it does little to comfort our bruised egos when we fall flat. Failure, at least to most of us, is more often experienced as a tsunami of uncomfortable thoughts and self-punishing emotions that lead us to hide at home and wallow in self-pity. (Enter Netflix and Uber Eats here).

Within the shame storm of failure, our mindsets equate the loss as evidence to quit. It triggers our inner critic to say "you see? I told you it wouldn't work!".

The single most important characteristic of accomplished people is not their ability to outwork their competitors, or remain stoic through storms, but rather a seemingly simple attribute: not giving up in the face of failure. Yet, even the words 'not giving up' (a critical ingredient of resilience) conjures images of 'chin up' and 'yes we can', erasing the hard truth that failure, hurts.

So the question really isn't about how to deal with failure, but rather, how to deal with the feelings that accompany failure.