I encourage you to test this hypothesis. I think you'll find it's incorrect. You can actually fail daily, in the ways you're most deathly afraid of (typically, looking foolish in front of others, facing a setback, or otherwise being knocked down a peg), and you won't die or worse (whatever "worse" is). People have tried this, for example instituting regimens of daily experiences of rejection, and it has only positive benefits.
Even a failed business or poor performance at a job won't kill you. These sound like worthier fears since they're more closely related to putting bread on the table, but typically the worst fears of corporate decision-makers are not that the company will execute poorly -- that usually happens anyway -- but that they will be blamed for it.
If we're going to talk about "failing" in general, I say fail as often as possible, even if this means the failures must be small.
If you never fail, you're not trying hard enough to do stuff that's appropriately difficult for you.