"It's gonna sound weird, but success for me was failing," she told CNBC Make It.
But why failing can lead to better future outcomes is generally misunderstood, says Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of "Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well."
"There's one really important misconception about failing, which is that failure and mistake are the same thing," she says.
If you're pursuing a new hobby or switching into a different role at work, know that failure is likely ahead.
A productive failure meets four criteria, Edmondson says.
Persons:
Jeff Bezos —, Gabby Douglas, Amy Edmondson, Edmondson
Organizations:
CNBC, Harvard Business School