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November 05 The Fringe Benefits of Failure
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College commencement speeches are meant to be inspiring, uplifting affairs that
impart a few words of wisdom to graduates about to set out to make their way in
the world. So among the many topics British author
J.K. Rowling might have broached in her June 5th address to Harvard's
2008 graduating class, failure was certainly an offbeat choice.
After all, what did she, the author of the wildly successful
Harry Potter series, know about failure? Moreover, how could it be
relevant to this particular audience of young adults, among the best and
brightest of their generation?
But in her speech, titled "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance
of Imagination," she told the crowd, "What I feared most for myself at
your age was not poverty, but failure ... And by every standard, I was the
biggest failure I knew."
For all of Rowling's success—nearly
400 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide, and her
fortune is estimated at $1.1 billion—her early life and forays into
fiction were far more modest. Her childhood dream was to write novels, but her
parents, who came from underprivileged backgrounds, worried she would never
survive and encouraged her to do something technical or otherwise financially
practical. She compromised by studying classics in college and afterward worked
as a researcher for Amnesty International. But it wasn't until she found herself
as a young divorcee living on state benefits that she hit, as she said, "rock
bottom."
"I was jobless, a lone parent and as poor as it is possible to be in modern
Britain without being homeless," Rowling told the crowd of soon-to-be
Harvard alumni. But it was during this dark time that she was able to reach for
her goal of writing fiction because, in her mind, she had nothing left to lose.
"Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to
myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my
energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded
at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the
one arena I believed I truly belonged."
Her failure, in fact, ended up as the catalyst for her tremendous success.
"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that
you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive," she said in her
speech. "You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your
relationships, until both have been tested by adversity."
Sounds a bit depressing and, to be honest, not much fun. After all, failure
isn't one of the things most college graduates look forward to putting on their
CVs. In fact, failing is an experience most people go out of their way to avoid,
rather than embrace.
Of course, failure isn't an experience to be deliberately sought, and cushioning
ourselves against its harshest blows makes perfect sense. But failure isn't
something to be despised or ashamed of, either. As
J.K. Rowling went on to say in her speech,
"Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing
examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no
other way."
Failure may feel horrible, but it can actually be good for you.
The stories of the world's most successful failures suggest that what matters
most is not whether you win or lose, but how you fail.
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October 09
"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same
strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative
mind and better manage your future."
The following eight strategies encourage you to think
productively,
rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions
to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of
creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history."
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1. Look at problems in many different ways, and
find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has
publicized!)
Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge
about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure
it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a
problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and
becomes a new one.
2. Visualize!
When Einstein thought through a problem, he always
found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways
as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and
believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant
role in his thinking process.
3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of
genius is productivity.
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed
productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a
study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of
the University of California at Davis found that the most respected
scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones.
They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive
at excellence.
4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and
recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no
matter how incongruent or unusual.
The laws of heredity on which the modern science of
genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who
combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.
5. Form relationships; make connections between
dissimilar subjects.
Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a
bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the
connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay
stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for
horses.
6. Think in opposites.
Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held
opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves
to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a
wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity.
Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.
7. Think metaphorically.
Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and
believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive
resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them
together was a person of special gifts.
8. Prepare yourself for chance.
Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end
up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative
accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as
an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components,
and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask
the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?"
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July 09 I have been having problems with this web site. It has become slow and hard to use. Maybe because there are too many other people using it. I have had reports of my friends not being able to open this web site. I don't know what the reason for it is but i have decided to create my own at www.davidgriffo.comgo to davidgriffo.com for all my recent entry's. June 21 We will have been married for 25 years this week. 26th June 1982 we were married. this is a tribute to my beautiful wife and girlfriend.
June 20 It's time to quit waiting for
Perfection
Inspiration
Permission
Reassurance
Someone to change
The right person to come along
The kids to leave home
A more favourable horoscope
The new administration to take over
An absence of risk
Someone to discover you
A clear set of instructions
More self-confidence
The pain to go away
Give Me A Break!
A story is told of a man who goes to church and prays, "God, I need a break.
I need to win the state lottery. I'm counting on you, God."
Having not won the lottery, the man returns to church a week later and once
again prays, "God, about that state lottery ... I've been kind to my wife.
I've given up drinking. I've been really good. Give me a break. Let me win
the lottery."
A a week later, still no richer, he returns to pray once again. "God, I
don't seem to be getting through to you on this state lottery thing. I've
been using positive self-talk, saying affirmations, and visualizing the
money. Give me a break, God. Let me win the lottery."
Suddenly the heavens open up, white light and heavenly music flood into the
church, and a deep voice says, "My son, give me a break! Buy a lottery
ticket!"
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