I like this quote: “It is not how far you fall, but how high you bounce, that counts“. Attribution is controversial, but it remains quite relevant.
Increasingly I find that the behavior in front of adversity is what counts. It is all too easy to appear to do the right thing when events and luck provide success. And sometimes it is just luck but we still believe it is our skills.
Being able to recover from failure in a constructive way and fight back is what really makes the difference. And sometimes it is better to hire people who have struggled and maybe even failed, because it is far more instructive on ourselves and on how to do things right than just to coast through success.
I am not saying we should intend to fail, but that what’s really makes the difference is how we react in front of adversity.