The phrase “failure is not an option” echoes through boardrooms, motivational seminars, and family dinner tables. Yet few truly understand what it means until they face a moment where everything hangs in the balance. Bob Hicks’s memoir, Failure Not an Option, reveals that this isn’t just a catchy motto it’s a lived philosophy born from real stakes and genuine consequences.
Beyond the Buzzword
When most people hear “failure is not an option,” they imagine relentless ambition or perfectionism. But Hicks’s story shows us something different. As a young airman in 1964, Hicks discovered a nuclear warhead blown off a Minuteman ICBM at Ellsworth Air Force Base. Thousands of lives depended on his next decision. In that moment, failure truly wasn’t an option not because of motivation, but because the alternative was unthinkable.
This distinction matters. Hicks didn’t succeed through sheer willpower alone. He succeeded because the situation demanded excellence, and his upbringing had prepared him to meet that demand.
The Foundation That Matters
Before Hicks ever joined the Air Force, he learned what commitment actually looked like. Growing up in Somerset, Texas, he watched his superintendent, Bill James, demonstrate integrity daily. His FFA teacher, Kenneth Taylor, showed him that preparation and hard work weren’t optional they were prerequisites for tackling anything meaningful.
These weren’t just nice lessons. They became the architecture of Hicks’s character. When he faced that nuclear crisis, he didn’t have time to motivate himself. He had already been motivated by people who showed him what excellence meant through their own lives.
This is what “failure is not an option” really requires: not just determination in the moment, but years of foundation-building beforehand.
Real Stakes Create Real Commitment
Throughout his forty-year career, Hicks moved from nuclear weapons maintenance to Explosive Ordnance Disposal to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Each transition brought new challenges. Each one felt impossible at first.
When Hicks attended nuclear weapons maintenance training at Lowry AFB, CO, he felt overwhelmed. Physics terrified him. The material seemed designed for people with backgrounds he didn’t have. But his instructor told him something simple: “You’ll make it through if I have to teach you everything myself.”
That instructor understood something crucial: “failure is not an option” isn’t about doing it alone. It’s about having people around you who won’t let you fail and being willing to become that person for others.
The Undercover Years: When Stakes Get Personal
Perhaps nowhere does Hicks’s philosophy get tested more than during his three-year undercover operation in Oklahoma City. He posed as a used aircraft parts dealer to expose defense contractors selling faulty components to the government. For three years, he lived a double life while his teenage sons grew up without a full-time father.
His wife, Janet, managed everything at home. She raised their boys, made critical decisions alone, and never complained. Hicks describes her as a “trooper” someone who understood that his mission demanded sacrifice from everyone he loved.
This reveals something uncomfortable about “failure is not an option”: sometimes the option to fail gets handed to other people. Janet’s commitment made Bob’s commitment possible. She lived the philosophy alongside him, even when she had every reason to resent it.
Learning to Lead Others Through It
Eventually, Hicks moved from field operations into leadership. He became Special Agent in Charge of OSI’s largest command, overseeing investigations across the West Coast. His job shifted from executing missions to ensuring others succeeded.
Here’s where his philosophy evolved. Hicks didn’t demand “failure is not an option” as a club to beat people with. Instead, he created environments where people understood why excellence mattered. He walked around his office each morning asking agents how they were doing. He attended meetings. He showed up.
When agents faced overwhelming cases, Hicks didn’t say, “Just work harder.” He asked: “What resources do you need? How can we tackle this together?”
What It Actually Means
Reading Hicks’s memoir, you realize “failure is not an option” doesn’t mean never struggling. Hicks struggled constantly. He felt out of his depth regularly. He made mistakes.
What it actually means is this: you prepare yourself for moments that matter. You surround yourself with people who care about the outcome as much as you do. You show up even when it’s hard. You don’t quit when the first approach fails; you try again.
It means understanding that your commitment affects people beyond yourself. It means accepting that sometimes others carry your burden when you can’t. And it means honoring that sacrifice by giving your absolute best effort.
The Legacy
Hicks finished his career being inducted into the OSI Hall of Fame. He didn’t earn that recognition through individual brilliance alone. He earned it by building teams, training agents, and creating cultures where excellence wasn’t demanded it was expected because people understood why it mattered.
“Failure is not an option” wasn’t motivational rhetoric for Hicks. It was a commitment to people to his country, to his colleagues, to his family. It meant showing up, preparing thoroughly, and refusing to let people down when they were counting on him. He prepared his subordinates to take his place and he told them so, often.
That’s what the phrase really means when you live it.
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