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Exploration and the risk of failure

Spring in  the River Þjórsá

Yet more wisdom from the pen of Seth Godin:

People seem to be in one of two categories:

  • Those who seek stability, affiliation, work worth doing and the assurance it (whatever ‘it‘ is) will be okay.
  • Those who explore, need to know that failure is an option and quest to make a dent in the universe.

You can be in either category, the world needs and rewards both. But pick a brand and a job and a posture that matches your category, or you’ll fail, and be miserable until you do.

Hint: there is no category of: “does risky exploration, never fails.”

Read Comments

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Comments

  1. Vikki Posted

    I’d be prepared to argue that “work worth doing” isn’t exclusive to the first category. I think quite a bit of exploration is in order to find work worth doing. Just a thought.

    Reply
  2. Kuba Posted

    It’s funny though how failure is differently interpreted by different explorers… I once spoke to Krzysztof Wielicki, right after their failed winter attempt on K2 in 2003. As he’d been very succesful until that moment, I asked him how it felt to finally fail. He laughed and said “Fail? Man, it was K2 in the winter and we are all back here!” – a good PR answer, but it sounded really genuine too.

    Oh, and hello everyone by the way – my first comment here. Great blog Al, went bivying last weekend!

    Reply
  3. Do you think a person chooses one or the other as a child or as an adult? I suppose it could be to do with nurture – parent’s have a lot of influence on their kids but I suppose that could send you both ways, rebel and get away from normality or be whipped in to line!

    People can always flick between the two I suppose – having children or getting married might make you think twice about attempting K2 or whatever!

    Reply

 
 

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