Fearing Failure

I read an article a few months ago about a man named Hideaki Akaiwa. The article blew my mind!
Heres a quick summary. On the 11th of March when the earthquake hit Ishinomaki in Japan a 43 year old man, Hideaki, was at work a few miles away from his home. What followed the HUGE earthquake was the tsunami; things really do not get worse. Now what made this situation worse was that his wife and mother where in the city at the time. Somehow Hideaki managed to find scuba gear and into the water he went, dodging floating cars and debris. He found his wife under water and proceeded to save his mother as well.

Heres a link for the full article:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/akaiwa.html

And for those who want a cleaner version:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/17/world/la-fg-japan-quake-scuba-20110317

The thing that stood out to me the most was how brave this man was. He obviously knew that the consequences of his action could be death, but that did not stop him. He went out there and did everything in his power to do what he felt he needed to do, and he succeeded! The reason it blew my mind is because most of the time I am so afraid of failure that I miss out on so much that life has to offer. He knew failure meant that he would die, but he would rather die then live his life without his wife.
My fear of failure keeps me from experiencing new things, and the "same old same old" is getting rather boring. I find myself passing up awesome opportunities, because you can't fail if you do not try. But I am starting to learn that failure is not completely negative, by this i mean that there are so many lessons to be learnt in failure. A person that can get up and try again, again and again, is a person who is not going to loose out on the gift that is life.
I do not want to miss out on what life has to offer me. From now on Hideaki is my role model, if he had not just gone out there and been a badass he would have lost what he holds most dear. So thanks Hideaki for being one madman.