I have never been a 'know-it-all' kind of person. I believe that there will be some stuff that you may not be aware of. For me, i can only claim to know things, till i am aware of it whole-istically. I am a lifelong learner, somehow I've never been able to throw a statement confidently or casually without knowing supporting facts and data. I associate this state with fear and failure. Fear of I-may-not-know somethings. Failure is more associated with embarrassment and unpreparedness, rather than opportunity, learning and growth. I find fear and failure analogous to learning. No one ever fantasizes failure but it is very important to 'fail early and fail fast' or 'be wrong as fast as you can', like said by Andrew Stanton (American film director, screenwriter, producer and voice actor based at Pixar)
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (former president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios) is one of my favourite books. In this book Catmull's reveals the ideals and techniques, honed over years, that have made Pixar so widely admired - and so profitable. Why a sudden mention of book, you will know soon. Sharing snippets from book -
For most of us, failure comes with baggage - a lot of baggage - that he believes is traced directly to our days in school. From a very early age, the message is drilled into our heads: Failure is bad; failure means you didn't study; prepare; failure means you slacked off or - worse! - aren't smart enough to begin with. Thus, failure is something to be ashamed of. That early experience of shame is too deep-seated to erase. All the time in my work i see people resist and reject failure and try mightily to avoid, because regardless of what we say, mistakes are embarrassing. It hurts.
We need to think about failure differently. I'm not first to say that - failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. Mistakes aren't necessarily evil. They are inevitable consequences of doing something new. Failure is an important part of learning.
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