They Named It After 39 Failures: What WD-40 Teaches Us About Strategic Pessimism

There's a can of lubricant in your garage that's named after failure. WD-40 stands for "Water Displacement, 40th formula,” which means formulas 1 through 39 didn't work. The chemist at Rocket Chemical Company who mixed formula number 23 couldn't afford to get emotionally devastated when it failed. Neither could the person mixing formula 12, or 31, or 38. They had to show up the next day and try again.

They understood something profound: success wasn't about nailing it on the first attempt; it was about staying detached enough from each failure to keep iterating until something worked. They built their entire brand around a simple truth most of us forget: the thing that eventually succeeds is usually standing on a pile of things that didn't.

Right now, someone reading this is on their version of formula 23. It could be job application 127 with three interviews and zero offers. Perhaps it's the fourth attempt to launch a business, following three previous failures. Maybe it's pitch number 31 to investors who keep saying "interesting, but not for us"; like Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, whose script for Back to the Future was rejected over 40 times by every major studio before it became the highest-grossing film of 1985.

Maybe it's the second career reinvention because AI just automated the first one. Or perhaps it's something quieter, the fifteenth attempt to build a new habit, learn a difficult skill, or repair a broken relationship. Whatever it is, they're exhausted. Each attempt that doesn't work feels less like iteration and more like evidence. Evidence that they may not be good enough. Evidence that it may be time to quit. And that's where most people do quit, not because they ran out of attempts, but because they ran out of the ability to survive another one emotionally.

This is where strategic pessimism becomes a survival skill. Not pessimism in the sense of "I'll never succeed,” that's defeatism. Strategic pessimism means expecting this specific attempt probably won't work, so you don't stake your entire identity on it. It's the psychological equivalent of a circuit breaker: when this attempt fails, it doesn't blow out your whole system. The chemist mixing formula 23 at Rocket Chemical Company wasn't an optimist or a pessimist; they were strategically detached.

They assumed formula 23 would fail, prepared for it emotionally, and showed up ready to mix formula 24. Most people do the opposite. They invest everything: hope, identity, self-worth, into each attempt. And when it fails, they don't just lose that attempt. They lose belief in themselves. Strategic pessimism says: protect yourself from that emotional devastation by assuming the attempt will fail, while maintaining absolute conviction that eventually something will work if you keep iterating.

Humans have always understood this instinctively. Farmers didn't plant one seed and wait to see if it grew; they planted fields of them, knowing most wouldn't make it. Hunters didn't expect every hunt to succeed; they went out again and again, understanding that persistence mattered more than any single outcome. Craftsmen created hundreds of pieces before crafting a masterpiece, and they didn't interpret the failures as evidence of worthlessness; they saw them as tuition paid toward skill development. Our ancestors survived because they mastered strategic pessimism without naming it.

They detached emotionally from individual outcomes while staying ferociously committed to the process. The problem isn't that we've forgotten this wisdom; it's that modern culture actively fights against it. We're told to "manifest success," to "visualize victory," to believe so intensely in each attempt that failure feels like personal collapse. We've turned healthy optimism into toxic positivity, where acknowledging that something might fail is viewed as a weakness rather than a learning opportunity.

And now, in the 21st century, strategic pessimism isn't just practical, it's essential for survival. The pace of change has accelerated to a level that surpasses anything our ancestors faced. Careers that were stable for decades get automated in months. Skills that took years to master become obsolete. Business models that worked last year fail this year. AI isn't just changing what we do; it's changing how fast we need to learn, adapt, and iterate. In this environment, the person who emotionally invests in every attempt will be burned out by Tuesday. The job seeker who treats each rejection as a personal verdict will quit before they find the right fit.

The leader who stakes their ego on each initiative will become paralyzed by fear of failure. Strategic pessimism becomes the psychological framework that enables you to move quickly, try multiple approaches, learn from what doesn't work, and keep moving forward. It's not about lowering your standards or settling for mediocrity; it's about understanding that in a world demanding constant reinvention, you can't afford to be emotionally destroyed every time something doesn't work. You need to be like that chemist at Rocket Chemical Company: detached enough to survive formula 23's failure, committed enough to show up and mix formula 24.

So, here's what strategic pessimism looks like in practice: expect this attempt to fail but try it anyway. Send the application, knowing it probably won't work out, and send it anyway. Pitch the idea, knowing they'll probably say no, and pitch it anyway. Launch the prototype, knowing it will need iteration, and launch it anyway. The goal isn't to stop caring about success. The goal is to stop tying your worth to each individual outcome. Because somewhere between Formula 1 and Formula 40, something shifts.

You stop asking "why didn't this work?" as if it's a personal failing and start asking "what did I learn?" as a strategic question. You stop seeing yourself as someone who keeps failing and start seeing yourself as someone who keeps trying. And that difference, that slight psychological shift, is often the only thing separating the person who quits at formula 23 from the person who makes it to formula 40. The chemists at Rocket Chemical Company weren't special because they succeeded. They were special because they were still mixing when everyone else had gone home. So, whatever your formula 23 is right now, keep mixing. Formula 40 might be closer than you think.

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