It’s surprising to me how often “fail more” can be a great way to help a person ultimately succeed.
Seth Godin says that if you’re struggling to come up with a good idea, to “show me all of your bad ideas first“.
I’ve even tried to “fail” on purpose at times; when trying to find a solution to a problem that continually escapes me, I’ll intentionally list a whole bunch of really bad solutions. Many times, one of those will trigger an idea that leads to the right path.
In his book “Twelve and a Half“, Gary Vaynerchuk offers similar advice. If you want to reach out to him for help, you had better have a lot of failure in your past. If you don’t, you’re not trying hard enough. Specifically, he says:
Dear artist, here’s my message back to you: DO NOT E-MAIL ME UNTIL YOUR 49TH PROJECT HAS FAILED. Don’t even consider it. Otherwise, you’ve completely missed the point of tenacity. You want to be a working artist and you gave up after one time? Let me get this straight: You want to spend your whole life drawing, painting, coloring, or doodling, and you gave up because nobody paid attention to your very first project? Get out of here.
Failure can be tough, and if you don’t learn from it then it can become rather worthless. Proper failure, and learning lessons along the way, are what can lead you to greatness.
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