I was listening to a podcast by David Duchovny
the proverbial Fox Mulder of the X-files–on failure.
As he notes in his overview—a summary of his podcast—
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Duchovny recites to WPR’s host Doug Gordon.
The finale of that quote serves as the title of Duchovny’s podcast from Lemonada Media, “Fail Better,” where he and his guests — like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sarah Silverman, and “Freakonomics’” Stephen J. Dubner — will explore how failure can shape lives.
“In my life, I’ve never learned anything from something that went well. I only learned through failing either personally or professionally,” Duchovny said. “The creation of resilience or the letting go of regret or shame that’s around failure, it’s very interesting to me to have those conversations.”
And driving out there, the far coastal highway, I contemplated the mystery of the road and the mist—what you can see out there. And what you cannot—the mystery of the future. GIRVIN’s now approaching its 52th year of continuous operations—
and failures, surely, we have experienced many—as everyone has.
Sure, there was the challenge of 1987, 2000.com valuation collapse, the hospitality travails of 2001—the global cataclysm of 9.11, the worldwide shifts in work of 2008. And while these were all momentous, we know that, in each of our realms, there have been other mistakes—failures if you will—that lead to other challenges and the resounding roll-outs of what happened in these scenarios. But, in each, we have learned—perhaps a hard fall, or perhaps a softly landed error that teaches a solution in evolution—”you were successful, then you were not.” And, in that, you transit from dealing with that failure, moving on, then you’re growing through the challenge, a new understanding and onwards.
For me, driving is a contemplative experience, the solo movement on the road is a kind of hile you’re looking out, traveling the distant vista—a long road, the living running—the journey shall continue—even if the route forward is unknowable.
And did anyone say it would be easy?
Craft, in the making of anything, building the outbound relationships to people, in the truth of it, will be fraught with failure. Tries and trials, and circumstances wrestle what was once a straight path into something of a twisted labyrinth of knotted wanders.
Commit to it, the trials, the trying.
Thinking about the story of living, it can be about the creative struggle
in finding the right solution; but that challenge will be in a set of failures, in getting to the next bend in the path.
It reminds me of meeting with a friend, client, of mine, Creative Director John Jay—formerly a creative at Weiden+Kennedy, Portland, Oregon. I worked with these two creative superhumans—Dave Kennedy+Dan Weiden in their earlier days, at the very beginning of the agency’s foundation—John gave Dawn and I a tour during the overview meeting at their offices. He’s since moved along, to Fast Retailing, the global fashion group.
But, in a trip with partner Dawn A. Clark, and a hello at W+K, I found a failure-related piece of art—including a video on failure; there’s a big sign there—learn how it was made, what it means. Fail harder. It’s made of a hundred fifty thousand clear push pins.
And a hundred hours of pin pushing…
the sign+the pins</strong>
photo by Dawn
As the record shows, to Weiden+Kennedy’s legacy of accepting, and working through, failure—there are outcomes. Better outcomes, winning evolutions—there is risk in venture, failure emerges, and rewards can be found in profound creative risk. Failing harder,
could offer a bigger win, that is.
To the notion of the journey and the journal of the daily creative explorations of making this living matter, you’ve got to fail harder. As I contemplate the challenges of my own running — now, 50 years—in the sprint of that long road, it’s still right there—the perspective of the distant longitude, the sequencing of the stride: fail big, risk, leap, roll with it and bolt hard onwards. Speaking to some of the other creative directors at W+K — failure is common; it’s not celebrated, but it’s never considered anything but a learning against the curve of creative exploration.
The point will be the nature of the experiment and the failure that could emerge, the learnings, and the stride ahead—the next.
As a person that’s perpetually putting a positioning between people
that make things and people that need them,
I ponder the three key words.
FAIL.
From a Latin word—fallere—for falling, as in a trip on an impediment.
TRY.
From the Old French—trier—to pick out or cull.
EXPERIMENT.
From the Latin—experiri—to test, to try—and thence, to become expert at. (experience)
It might be in the last word that the risk is summed up—
the word speaking to the nature of experience, there is a journey there.
Your journeying.
Experience comes from the most ancient word roots of all, the PIE etymology—ex, from the Latin, and *per from the PIE base “to lead or to pass over” — founding the same word as peril. The trial of any effort will play to the action of risk—and the danger of striding towards one place that will remain unattempted by others. Trusting the maturation of instinct, the pleasure of the heart, and the fitness to leap—
there, you go.
There is a long road, and failure will be right there walking stride and stride in your progressions,
in the laying of the journey, stone on stone, step by step—experiment towards experiment.
In risking the harder failure, the willingness to imperil—
the outcomes will be more profound.
And isn’t that what it’s all about, making the pathway more unforgettable?
Fail harder.
Learn more.
Go deeper into the mist,
and uncover the future.
Designers, brand people—you might be asking, what does this mean for me, brands, and work?
A willingness to experiment, take risks—size up the terrain, the scale of the jump and take the leap.
Tim | GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
Digital | Built environments by Osean | Theatrical Branding
9 Head notes
[thanks to Forbes]
1.
“Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be”
John Wooden
2.
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
Jack Canfield
3.
“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
Coco Chanel
4.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
Robert F. Kennedy
5.
“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
Janet Fitch
6.
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
Ken Robinson
7.
“Giving up is the only sure way to fail.”
Gena Showalter
8.
“If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail…
it takes back bone to lead the life you want”
Richard Yates
9.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.
Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.
Failure is something we can avoid only
by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
Denis Waitley