The rewards of failureFailure: We all avoid it, and most of us fear it.However, without failure, progress would be impossible.Indeed, the word success comes from the Latin succedere, meaning "to come after."And what does success usually come after? Failure.It seems that one cannot exist without the other.Learning from FailureEvery failure-even the worst ones-helps us learn to do things differently in the future."I learned how not to climb the first four times I tried to summit Everest," says mountaineer Pete Athans, who has now reached the world's highest peak seven times."Failure gives you a chance to refine your approach. You're taking risks more and more intelligently."In Athans' case, his setbacks taught him that it was important to choose a less challenging route for his first climb up Everest.Learning from past mistakes and making changes helped him to reach the top successfully.Failure also reminds us that things can go wrong-sometimes disastrous results.Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is the first woman to summit all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without extra oxygen.In 2007, while climbing in Nepal, she was in an avalanche.Luckily, she survived, but two nearby Spanish climbers died.The experience taught Kaltenbrunner that mo matter how prepared a person is, bad things can still happen.The events of that day troubled her deeply, but in time, Kaltenbrunner decided she had to learn from the experience and move on."I realized that I couldn't make the tragedy unhappen," she says, "and I couldn't stop climbing-this is my life.