New year, new (valuable) errors!
There’s a lot of focus on succeeding, making the right choices and being good at what you do. People often share success stories, and how well something went. Thankfully, a growing interest in failing leaves us with a more balanced picture. Did you know that some of the best ideas, regardless of business sectors, occurred after making the wrong choices first? These experiences helped the right choices along, bringing valuable guidance along the way.
Both in the US and in Europe, fail seminars and webinars are emerging, with accomplished businesses sharing brutally honest (and sometimes epic) mistakes and bloopers. I think being open about these shortcomings help others to dare trying out new things. If we don’t risk trying something out, nothing new or better can come out of it.
It took Thomas Edison 10 000 failed attempts to create the lightbulb. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper in Kansas because his editor meant he “lacked imagination and good ideas”. Henry Ford had two failed automotive companies before succeeding with Ford motor company.
Especially now, when everything is in constant change, we can’t afford not to fail. I hope successful leaders continue to share their screw-ups. We should read more books as the one in the picture below, about “How to turn mistakes into ideas and other advice for successfully screwing up”.
As John Wooden once put it:
Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.
