Daily Inspiration: “Chase good failure!”

“Chase good failure!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

This post originally started out with this thought in mind: “You don’t have a right to success. But you do have the right to learn it and earn it!” My original idea was to come up with a list of 101 things you could do to try to learn and earn your success going forward.

But at the same time, a potential client was asking me for a video clip of how I do my text message polling on stage – it’s an effective way for audience interaction. While editing the clip, the phrase ‘good failure’ came to mind – because my attempt failed live, in real-time, in front of the audience. I then turned around and used that failure to my advantage to emphasize a key point. In effect, the video clip is an example of ‘good failure‘ in action! Hence, today’s quote!

And so, here’s my rolling list:

1. Chase good failure
2. Avoid bad failure
3. Know the difference!
4. Do even more good failure
5. Do less bad failure while you do so<
6. Always have a backup plan
7. Test your backup plan
8. Make that plan, plan B
9. Don’t fear to change
10. Fear not changing!
11. Change faster
12. Know what to change
13. Know what not to change
14. Do many new things
15. Avoid the old things
16. Put in the work
17. Work harder
18. Know when not to work
19. Chase ideas
20. Keep reinventing your ideas
21. When you are stuck, find a new idea
22. Don’t get stuck on one idea
23. Let go of your best ideas
24. Because there is always a better idea
25. Take the lumps
26. Learn from the lumps
27. Don’t fear your failures
28. Celebrate your successes
29. Get inspired by others
30. View your success as an iterative voyage
31. Learn what you don’t know
32. Know what you don’t know
33. Unlearn what you do know
34. Know what you need to know next
35. Know what’s next
36. Get involved with that next
37. Challenge your assumptions
38. Eliminate your habits
39. Get out of your rut
40. Find a new rut and make it a temporary one
41. Rethink your dumb ideas – they are a starting point for a great idea
42. Find the smart idea within the dumb idea
43. Recognize that it might not be a dumb idea after all
44. Listen more
45. Listen to the right people
46. Avoid the negative people
47. Find inspiration in inspirational people
48. Know who those people are
49. Get rid of the toxic ones
50. At the same time, inspire others
51. Find the power of the crowd
52. Learn to work the power of the crowd
53. Give back to the crowd
54. Always find a new crowd
55. Don’t assume you have the solution
56. But make sure you can identify the problem
57. Try something that works
58. When it doesn’t work, try a new thing
59. Only do that new thing for a while and then find another new thing
60. Have an inventory of new things
61. Nurture those new things with your imagination
62. Recognize that your imagination is your most important asset
63. So dream more
64. Dream big
65. Dream of things that other people say are crazy
66. Do more crazy
67. But recognize it’s not crazy – it’s innovation
68. So innovate more!
69. Innovate simply to innovate – forget a goal
70. Change your goals
71. Have multiple goals
72. Abandon goals faster in place of new ones
73. Learn more
74. Learn more faster
75. Know faster what you need to learn faster
76. Learn just-in-time
77. Develop skills to learn-just-in-time
78. Observe more
79. Observe the right things
80. Don’t observe what doesn’t matter
81. Know what doesn’t matter
82. Waste time
83. Do frivolous things
84. Make them less frivolous – make them real
85. Stop making excuses
86. Stop blaming others
87. Abandon the whole idea of excuses
88. Start moving
89. Make action your oxygen
90. Be horrified by your inaction
91. Admit when you were wrong
92. Know when you were wrong
93. Fix those wrongs
94. Know how to get your trainwreck back on track
95. Help others get back on track
96. Know what the track forward should be
97. Never go back to the other track
98. Chase optimism
99. Nurture your optimism
100. Make ‘oops‘ your personal mantra
101. Know that good failure is good for you

And there you are!

101 ideas to start your day!