“Honor your errors,” is a quote I heard from Kevin Kelley. Kelley is the co-founder of Wired magazine. If you've never read a copy of Wired, do yourself a favor and pick one up. Kelley's three little words might be some of the most important words you'll ever imprint onto your brain.
Making
mistakes, taking chances, committing errors; it's the only way to
progress. In military parlance
they say, in order to advance a general must expose his flank. Then
there's the folksy saying, even the turtle can't get anywhere unless
his sticks out his neck. And Will Rogers reportedly said, “You've
got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.”
A lot of
people, perhaps most, hate making mistakes. The truth is, failure
scares us half-to-death. What I wonder is, when do people
lose the ability to make mistakes? I'm not exactly sure but it's a
very good question. We've all seen kids fall down and immediately
pick themselves up as if it were no big deal. They almost don't even
register what happened. It's as though they expect to fall down, so
they aren't surprised when it happens.
But
at some point most people become perfectionists. We lose the ability
to make mistakes. How, and why, does it happen? Maybe it's our peer
group laughing at us. Maybe it's genetic hard-wiring, like the fear
of heights or the fear of snakes. Maybe it's our school system that
punishes mistakes. And, maybe, it's all the above.
A
big problem is that humans are also hard-wired to enjoy growing. This
fact makes me doubt the idea that fear of failure (making mistakes)
is hard-wired into our brain. Because the fact of the matter is, our
genes tell us to feel good when we overcome adversity, learn, and
accomplish things. When we accomplish something (perhaps learning
something new) our brains secrete a neurotransmitter called dopamine
that makes us feel good. As we all know, what gets rewarded gets
repeated. And dopamine is nature's way of getting us to repeat the
growth process.
But
understanding how we got here is less important than knowing how
we're going to get out of here. This is where Kevin Kelley's little
quote is golden. Like I mentioned, most adults resist taking any
chances that could result in a mistake. When what we should really be
doing is embracing our mistakes. Honoring our errors. Exposing our
flank.
Robert
Kiyosaki is fond of saying something to the effect of, “The biggest
failures I have ever met are people who never failed.” (Can you say
paradox?) Kiyosaki tells the story his own, biological father, who
was highly educated, earning as much as a PhD. But for his whole
life, Robert's dad played it safe. He didn't like taking chances
because he couldn't stomach the idea of failure. So, the elder
Kiyosaki spent his entire career working for the Hawaiian government
in the education department. (Maybe one of the lessons he taught was
the dangers of mistakes.) One day the father's world collapsed. He
had tried to fix some of the problems he saw in the educational
system. For his efforts he was rewarded by being thrown out of the
educational system and ostracized. The golden years of Robert's dad's
life ended up being anything but shiny.
The
paradox of the fear of failure leading to ultimate failure is one we
should all remember. As you know, I talk a lot about paradoxes,
because I think they're so important. The idea, that playing it safe
can be a dangerous strategy, comes off as counter-intuitive It can
even seem like it advocates being reckless. But you know better than
that. In fact, what Kevin Kelley would advocate, is systematic error
management.
Kelley would contend that life is all about systematic error management. Of course, we wouldn't called it systematic error management, that's nerdy as hell! We simply call it being "adaptive" or "rolling with the punches." Humans are the predominant species on the planet due to our ability to adapt. In fact, Tim Harford wrote a book titled Adapt: Why
success always starts with failure. In the book, Tim has
lots of ideas about failing productively (p-dox!) Here are three examples:
Tim's
Principles of Failure:
1.
Be willing to fail...a lot.
2.
Fail on a survivable scale.
3.
Spot a failure and fix it, early
Sometimes we should play it safe. I don't recommend walking a tight rope across the Grand Canyon. I mean, Evel Knievel was entertaining as hell, but I wouldn't follow in his foot steps. The problem arises when we get overly conservative. So,
go for it! Take a chance. Ask for the sale. Ask for a date. Ask for
that raise. Sing a song. Whatever! And always remember the words of
Harry Connick Jr, “Safety's just danger...out of place.”
What this post hopefully illustrates is the centrality of two topics in our lives. Both of them very complicated. One is emotion and the other is paradox. And, as the title of this blog indicates, these are two topics I will discuss often. Indeed, these subjects are quite connected. What holds us back from honoring our errors is the emotion of fear. And, as it turns out, emotions are often very paradoxical indeed. More on this later.
