On Failing


Pikes Place Seattle When Pigs Fly LOL

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Michael Jordan

There are times in your life when failure  – and I mean complete abject failure occurs. Embrace it.

Lucille ball, arguably one of the most loved actors of the 20th century, also the first woman to build and head a TV studio and create original production methods (live studio audience anyone?) still used to this day. Did you know she had a very rocky life that was chock full of failures and downturns and people who told her that she would never succeed in her chosen path?

But what else did she have? 
A dream, a goal, and persistence. 
This was a woman who would not give up. 

Ever.

You know that gut-wrenching feeling when you don’t get something perfect on your first try or you are told by others that you will never succeed because you just aren’t good enough? That’s life. It happens and it hurts because you know – really know in your heart of hearts that you really could and really should be doing the thing (whatever the thing is). And that ‘knowing’, my friend, that’s the universe saying, “Bullshit to that, you got this. Try again.”

“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

Walt Disney
Dyson Cyclone V10 Motorhead vacuum cleaner

5,126 – that’s the number of failed prototypes Sir James Dyson created over the years as he tried, again and again, to perfect what he knew would be a revolutionary new vacuum. Three plus years after that before he was able to actually build and sell a version. He had to even create his own company before he could market it to the masses (Tesla, anyone?). And now? A technology that is used daily by millions everywhere and in many industries – and let’s not forget Sir Dyson’s net worth of over £16.2 billion setting him at the top of the Sunday Times Rich List as the richest person in the UK in 2020.

And now, Dyson gives that opportunity to try and fail and try again to those who work for him. “Nothing beats the thrill of invention. Letting people go out and try their ideas, getting them totally involved, and unleashing new thinking,” he says. “They’re not bound to any methodology — in fact, the stranger and riskier, the better.”

So, I say to you… and myself… Try again.