You need to fail.
Failure leads to innovation.
When we learn from our mistakes, and we choose to reframe failure as opportunity rather than the kiss of death we set ourselves up to actually innovate. There is no innovation without setbacks.
If our goal is to avoid failure, we can count on innovation being allusive. Failure is a vital part of the creative process.
Here are 9 thoughts to remember as you lead your team in new projects.
- “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” – Miles Davis – As a leader, you should be intentional to create safe places for your team to fail forward. When we don’t permission failure we rob our team of the opportunity to grow.
- “An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.” – Charles Kettering- Use setbacks as opportunities to lead forward. Practice does make perfect, even in art.
- “I have not failed once. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.” – Thomas Edison – Find a new way. The more paths to success the better, but in order to blaze a new path, we have to get lost a few times.
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“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald – My favorite. Defeat is only final when we give up. Keep going, keep showing up. Keep being brave.
- “Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.” – Horace – We learn so much more from failing than we do success.
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“If your life is free of failures, you’re not taking enough risks.” – H. Jackson Brown – Joshua 1:9. Be courageous. Make sure you are leaning into audacious faith and try things that stretch you and make you scared.
- “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills – Fear will keep you on the bench. Never let fear of failure cripple you.
- “Act as if it were impossible to fail.” – Dorothea Brande – When you understand you actually can’t fail, you can just learn differently, you position yourself to actually DO the impossible.
- “You can only be as good as you dare to be bad.” – John Barrymore – How good do you want to be? Take risk at the same level.
BONUS:
“The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” – Thomas Watson – Twice the risk, twice the reward.
