Reader question: This is a line from the movie Frost/Nixon: “David doesn’t do failure.” What does it mean exactly?

My comments: It means that David, David Frost that is, doesn’t accept failure. Or he doesn’t allow failure to happen. He won’t stop trying until he succeeds.

Or in David’s dictionary, you might say, there’s no entry for “failure”.

Still in other words, failure is not an option for David. It won’t DO.

In real life, of course, David Frost was a British talk show host, and in every conceivable sense, he’d be among the last people you’d imagine to have pulled off the first exclusive interview with Richard Nixon, the one and only US President to resign from office for wrongdoing, specifically due to what came to be known as the Watergate scandal.

But succeed Frost did, spending every penny in his own pocket as well as any money he could borrow. In the film, and during one of the few moments when Frost appeared to be nearing emotional breakdown, he said to his partner: “Why didn’t you stop me? Someone should’ve physically stopped me!”

Or something in similar vein, so you can imagine the pressure he put himself under.

Anyways, here are more examples of the phrase “doesn’t do failure”, or “excuses” and so forth:

1. Can men ever cope with women who are far more successful than them? Everywhere now I see couples where the woman earns more than the man but where the woman is still expected to shore up the masculine ego. This marriage was almost a caricature of that. This nice middle-class boy had to get more macho by the week - shooting, singing rebel songs, making gangster films - while his wife continued her obsessive need for world domination. He thought he could handle it. She thought she’d found a man tough enough to take it. But Madonna doesn’t do failure. She has worked hard at having the perfect marriage. For once the work has not paid off.

 - A tough old bird? Well, too tough for you, Guy, DailyMail.co.uk, October 19, 2008.

2. He insists he was always good at keeping in touch with those he worked closely with. But not very good at keeping on side with those he had to? “Yes, yes, yes, I think that’s probably right.” There’s a long pause, as he struggles with his words. “Difficult . . . the party became very divided in the 80s. They had a view about who was ‘One of us’ as the phrase was, and I never was.” The assassin sounds rather hurt. He must at times wish he hadn't stood against her. “I don’t have any regrets,” he says. But it’s only human to have regrets. “I had a wonderful time, huge privilege,” he chants. “I cast the dice, and I knew what I was doing.” He equates regret with failure, and he doesn’t do failure.

- Interview: Michael Heseltine, The mane man, Guardian, April 2, 2001.

3. So that we get started on the right note, some straight talking and a few personal goal settings ground rules.  I don’t do problems  I don’t do failure  I don’t do dreams  I don’t do hope  I don’t do desire  I don’t do wish Saying you have a health ‘problem’, is the same as saying the health 'problem' have you because you have made it a part of you. When you work with me in setting and achieving a realistic goal or goals, you will learn that ‘Problems’ are simply health challenges, barriers or blocks, that, with a bit of effort, you simply choose to walk around, jump over or break down. Nor do I do ‘failure’. You see telling yourself or allowing other people to tell you, you have or will fail is sabotaging yourself before you’ve even begun. Think about this for a moment. You are walking on a slippery surface. You tell yourself – ‘I hope I don’t fall.’ What do you suppose happens? Yes, just as you tell yourself that, you fall because you planted a little seed that would sprout ‘failure’ and when it does, you further reinforced that ‘failure’ by telling yourself ‘I knew that would happen’. ... Nor do I do ‘dreams’, ‘hope’, desire or ‘wish’. Sure you can dream but dreams belong in your sleep and in your positive visualizations of that round the world cruise you are going to reward yourself with upon successful completion of your personal health goals. (That’s the one your partner don’t know about yet). Wishes and dreams etc., have no place in your clearly defined health goals.

 - Personal Goal Setting Can Change Your Life Today! Health-womens-healthy-living-goals.com.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.