Tuesday 4 October 2011

Room to fail

So many self-help books, management trends and motivational writers or speakers talk about being willing to fail and learn from it. But sometimes (quite often, in fact) we don't have room to fail. If you need to put your entire life savings into your dream of starting a restaurant, and it fails, then you have nothing. No life savings, no more restaurant and possibly a huge debt, too. You might die homeless and alone, but at least you learned a valuable lesson through your failure, right?

By all means, make the hard choices. Take the risks. Sometimes you will fail, and you will learn from it, but your mistakes will cost you, and you need something to absorb that cost. You might be able to start again from nothing, but "nothing" can look very different to an orphaned minimum-wage-slave in subsidised housing and a musician hipster with a rich, doting grandmother.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - When all else fails, endeavour to be the one with the rich grandmother.
PPS - It's generally the better choice.

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