A Toast to Failure

Here's to failure, one of our greatest teachers.

 

Barack Obama:

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

George Bernard Shaw:

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.

Havelock Ellis:

It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.

Herbert B. Swope:

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody.

It's a Wonderful Life:

Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.

John Dewey:

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

Mary Pickford:

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.

 

Michael Jordan:

I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Oscar Wilde:

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Ralph Ellison:

Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

Robert F. Kennedy:

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Samuel Smiles:

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.

Thomas Alva Edison:

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

William Saroyan:

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

Winston Churchill:

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

And finally, from a Chinese fortune cookie I received last week:

You may fail many times, but you are not a failure until you give up.

You Should Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

The old adage is Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth. In my mother's view, it meant that if someone gives you a present, you should accept it graciously, even if it is something that is not exactly what you want. My view is that the economy fell apart because greedy people failed to examine that steed. Too many people jumped at the chance to get homes, cars, and other luxuries they couldn't afford with loans and cheap credit they knew they couldn't repay (at least not in this lifetime, based on minimum payments). I'm old-fashioned enough to be suspicious whenever someone offers me something that sounds to good to be true. Read that fine print and you'll find that it almost always is. The size of our economy is a function of how much credit is being used. The quality of our economy is a function of how much we save, how much we keep spending within our means, and how frequently we buy products that are manufactured here rather than abroad. Don't always look to cheat the system, or you may find that there won't be a viable system at all in the future.

Why Would Anyone Want to Be President?

Anyone wanting to be President of the United States defies logic. First, the job pays a lot less than it costs to get elected. Second, you have to endure large groups of people doing everything they can to destroy your reputation and ability to achieve your goals (Whether your name is George W. Bush or Barack Obama, your position on the issues will anger a large portion of the electorate.). Third, you are speaking fervently to people who don't want to hear what you have to say and who are speaking more loudly than you are. Fourth, you are trying to address the needs of the country as you see them, and many people are only saying, "Don't make any changes that intrude on my comfort zone."

President Lyndon Johnson wanted to keep track of poll results on how people thought he was doing. If you worry about what others think of you all the time, you will never get anything done, and you will have trouble sticking to your principles. This applies even to those of us who will not ever try to be elected for anything. If you are comfortable with the decision you make, stick with it, at least until someone comes up with a logical modification of that decision that makes even more sense to you. Our outlook has been influenced too much by the media. Ratings really don't matter. If you follow your principles and feel comfortable with your decision, then go ahead with it. As Commander David Farragut once said, "Full speed ahead! Damn the torpedoes!"

Heroes Are People Too

I just returned from the big EAA Airventure Airshow and Convention in Oshkosh, WI. This is an annual trip for me, and I am always impressed by both the technology and the people. One of the best parts is that you get to have personal conversations with people who have been through ordeals you will probably (hopefully) never have to face. Last year I spoke briefly with Dick Cole, co-pilot with Jimmy Doolittle in the April 18, 1942 payback raid on Tokyo by sixteen B-25 bombers. This year I met Jeff Skiles, First Officer of US Airways Flight 1549 that made a safe emergency landing in New York's Hudson River. The common thread in my conversations with both of these heroes is that while talking with them, you feel as though you are talking with an old friend from down the street. They feel as though they were just doing their jobs, although doing them very well under very trying circumstances. There were a lot of other just plain folks there, too: the airmen and soldiers of World War II and all the subsequent wars. It is always a privilege to meet them and talk with them. They are heroes, although you'll probably never learn of their individual exploits. The nice thing about the Oshkosh Airshow is that you also meet a lot of young people who are growing up to appreciate aviation and the heroes that came before them and walk among them.

Unintended Consequences

Whenever you make a decision that will affect your future, you should remember that unintended consequences may result. Here are a few societal and personal examples that come to mind:
Desire: Use computers more to eliminate files of papers. Result: More paperwork as people back up their computers with paper versions because of mistrust of computer reliability or rapid computer obsolescence.
Desire: Pass more laws to control crime and regulate society. Result: More lawyers.
Desire: Visits to fast food restaurants to save time in busy schedules. Result: Obesity and poor nutrition balance.
Desire: Get the best cable or satellite TV package. Result: Lack of exercise and obesity; no time for other tasks.
Desire: Hire landscapers to have a more appealing lawn and grounds. Result: Lack of exercise.

I'm sure you can think of other similar cases.

You Matter More than Your Job.

Most Americans, when asked about themselves in the course of meeting new people, will describe themselves by what they do for a living. In other parts of the world a self-description includes more basic, general, and personal information. When you describe yourself in terms of your job, you open yourself up to two negative consequences. First, you present a very limited image of yourself. There is much more to you than the job you happen to be performing. The second problem is that when you have a self-image that is based on your job, you are setting yourself up to be traumatized if you lose that job. There are many things that you could be doing for a living. It may have been a complete accident that led you to the position you now occupy. Spend some time thinking about what really matters to you and what you would really like to do or achieve in life. Start talking to people about those important things instead of talking about your job all the time, and you might find doors opening toward actually doing some of those other things.

This Speech Has Been Long Overdue.

Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric Company has made a speech that is worth reading in its entirety. He says things that our leaders should have said long ago. Click on the title of this post to read it.