A: I’ve been given the walking papers in the latest round of layoffs.

B: Don’t panic. This could be your chance to fail up.

Note: In general, to “fail up” is to achieve success despite failure. With its clever and economical “up,” the verb phrase at once flips our script on setbacks and defeats, often associated with “down.” We can find evidence for failing up in popular psychology as early as 1979, when self-help author Ralph Charell encouraged employees who struggled at work to seize the “great opportunity to fail upward.” By the 2010s, “failing up” had become a full-fledged Silicon Valley buzzword. We are not afraid of failure, because we like taking risks, being resilient and learning from our mistakes.