If you try to build a robot butler (a personal aspiration of mine) and it explodes, you learned something incredible. You learned one way to not build a robot butler. Next time, you’ll try something different.
Repeat this 1,000 times, and it is inevitable that you will build the most incredible robot butler on the planet. The kind that will make our dreams come true. The one that will be like the family member we never had.
People will write books about you. Your brilliance. Your overnight success. But, you will know the truth.
You will remember the endless evenings of prying metal shards from the ceiling. Explaining that the odd smell coming from your house is from your new eclectic cooking hobby. On a few occasions, keeping your creation from turning on humanity.
You will remember the failures. How each one of them was a step towards success. And how you persevered with the resilience of an underpaid debt collector.
Used properly, failure is the greatest teacher of all. So long as you don’t do the thing that failed again. That’s just silly.
The problem is that failure has gotten a bad rap in today’s society. Nobody wants an F on an assignment. Especially if they tried to color outside the lines. Better to play it safe and follow the rules.
The musicians have a tremendous advantage in failure education. We get to fail on a daily basis. Sometimes even publicly! And that is when we learn to adjust, experiment, and explore.
But if we treat failure like an F on a report card, forever symbolizing our worth…we lose out on those opportunities. No 1,000 tries to a robot butler. And no welcoming Blinky into our home to do our bidding after all.
So, go out there and try something new. Challenge yourself to fail. Come back and tell us what you learn.