“but the difference is whether you decide to stop at a failure, or keep going until you get as many failures as possible out of your system until the only possible outcome is that you succeed.” – Benny Lewis
I know there are some who disagree with the concept of failing fast and failing often, especially when it comes to starting a business, but I’m not talking about business, I’m talking about life.
Me, and about a billion other people are not going to start a business, but we are going to try things. We’re going to try hard things and even, in our minds, impossible things, but I think we quit too soon before we even know if can be good at something.
I could have been a better guitar player if I hadn’t quit.
I could have been a black belt if I hadn’t quit after two sessions.
I could have been ______________ (fill in the blank)
My contention isn’t that we should keep failing ad-naseum, we should fail just enough to get the failure(s) out of our system and see if we hit a tipping point where we can decide if whatever we are trying to get good at is something we want to fail some more at and eventually succeed (at some level) or did we just want to improve and move on.
Most people stop at a few failures, if that, because they have a fear of failure. I want to fail enough that I know when I’m wasting my time.
I’m not good at golf, but I know if I put the hours in I can improve, but I’ve at least played enough golf, and scored in the 120’s enough, to know it’s not something I want to improve in. It’s a fine game but it’s not something I want to be a “success” at.
If you want to get good at something fail enough times to get as good as you want to be. If you want to be successful (make money, make it your job), fail as many times as it takes, make calculated risks (if money is involved) and pivot when necessary.
What do you think? Do buy into the fail fast and fail often philosophy?
If you’d like to hear me elaborate, you can check out my FB video