You have to honor failure, because failure is just the negative space around success.
– Randy Nelson of Pixar in this excellent article in Wired
Yes! The whole failure is not an option thing is just misguided. Honor failure. If you’re not failing occasionally regularly, you’re not doing anything interesting.
Alex, thanks for the heads up on the Randy Nelson article!
I don’t play golf but have been told by golf pros that when they help someone change their swing their scores always get worse before they get better. Unless there is initial failure at some level there isn’t any real change taking place.
As always, thanks for adding to the great conversations of the world!
Thanks Mike. I think it is possible to go from success to success, ie. to change without going through failure first.
However, I also think that the most likely way of achieving this is by being open to failure.
Not to be a negative Nelly, but isn’t it possible to fail continuously until the day you die?
Now that I got that out of my system, let me say that “failure is good” is to my mind the most important concept to take to heart in life. Most of us aren’t born winners (quite the opposite) and will fail until we succeed. But if you can manage to enjoy your failures as much as success, life is good!