How To FailScrew ups, disasters, misfires, flops. Why losing big can be a winning strategy.Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing UpStay in the Game: The Fall and Rise of Alec BaldwinLearn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke NukemTime Your Attack: Oracle's Lost RevolutionMy Greatest Mistake: Learn From Six LuminariesAccidental Art: Three Alternate Histories Celebrities tend to be endlessly, tediously positive: Every day is a Gift, every project a Personal Best, and every costar a Genius. Alec Baldwin is not afflicted with this syndrome. At 51, he's a failure, self-described. He's also at the peak of his career, a peak he reached by scaling a K2 of catastrophe, personal and professional.

You see, two decades of relentless mistakes have earned him multiple Emmys, Tony and Oscar nominations, and a much-anticipated gig cohosting the Academy Awards with Steve Martin — a lifetime of stutter-stop achievement Baldwin calls "all this other bullshit." None of it mitigates his sense of having fallen short of triumph. But the star of 30 Rock (and the new rom-com It's Complicated with Meryl Streep) is OK with that. In fact, he's thrilled. That's because each Baldwin Fail — beginning in 1991 with the loss of the Jack Ryan franchise to Harrison Ford, which sank a promising career as a leading man — seems to have spurred a Baldwin Save. In that spirit, Baldwin ushers Wired through his greatest flops, leading by example on how to fail, fail again, and fail better next time.

The Fail

My entire film career.

I made films from about '86 until '99. And then things started to really wind down. When your fortunes ebb in the movie business, it's like The Sixth Sense: You're dead and you don't know it.

The Save

My television career.

30 Rock doesn't have the biggest audience, but we have an audience. And my God, what a difference it makes. I walk down the street all day long and people tell me how much they love the show. Not that I need to wake up every day and have every bird in the trees and every horse riding along the bridle path wink at me and say, "Oh, Alec, I loved 30 Rock last night!" But it's nice.

The Fail

Mercenary acting.

I needed to make a living. People don't realize actors are like plumbers. When you invite a plumber to your house and say, "I want you to put this sink in my bathroom," the plumber doesn't say, "I'm not going to install that sink, it's hideous. You have the worst taste in sinks!" No, he just says, "OK," and he puts it in.

The Save

Making a terrible romantic comedy.

My Best Friend's Girl had one of the worst scripts I've ever read in my life. The movie was a huge disaster. Scathing reviews. And I realized: I'm done with doing it for the money.

The Fail

My personal life.

I mean, I'm divorced. I was married to someone [actress Kim Basinger]. I got very Zen about it. It doesn't really matter who's to blame. But in many ways my marriage mirrors my experience in the film business. I think to myself, How many years do I have left? What's out there that I want to enjoy?

The Save

A very productive midlife crisis.

I had the realization: God, I'm 51 years old and I spent 30 years of my life doing things I didn't want to do. The things you do to please other people! I said to myself, Well now I'm just going to have a good time. That was the most freeing thing. For the first time, I wanted to do whatever I felt like that day. I wrote a book, A Promise to Ourselves, this critique of the family law system. I want to write more books. I want to go back to school. I might even run for public office.

The Fail

A run for public office.

I will try to sell the American public on this idea: Sacrifice more! Make do with less! For the good of the country! I'll run for office, and I'll go out there and bomb.

The (Likely) Save

Another sitcom.

Another sitcom. Probably a sidekick role on Jack McBrayer's Kenneth spinoff. We're all going to be working for the 30 Rock page.

The Alec Baldwin Career Graph

Overcoming failure again and again and again...

Grooming by Richard Esposito and Stacey Panepinto; set design by Andy Harman/Wall Group; Interviewed at Public in the Monday room in New York City