THE GREATEST TEACHER

July 20th, 2018

Without failure there is no progressive iteration.

Failure is far more capable of showing a precise error than success is capable of revealing the reason for success.

Success may mean simply that nothing went wrong, but this does not really reveal what actually went right, because this is generally a large concert of things.

Failure on the other hand can be narrowly identified.  It can be measured, inspected and analyzed.

Analyzing success is far more difficult.  So difficult that it could possibly be a waste of time.

Since time is the most valuable resource, it becomes the center of the question:

What will take less time?  Iterating through failures and identifying small, measurable flaws that can be corrected for the next iteration?  Or trying to analyze the elements of success and then copy those elements perfectly?

A concentration on failure may at first seem negative.  But such a concentration is more agile and in the long run honors our goal more intimately.

This episode piggy-backs off of Episode 77: The Proper way to Fail.  If you’d like to fully understand that reference, please check out that episode next.