08 Jun A spoonful of my own
There is a relationship between risk/innovation/mistakes/failure.
I failed last week at something I wanted to go well. I spent all of Saturday in my head beating myself up…
Waste of time. Doesn’t make me better. Self indulgent. I’m sitting there at a campsite with 20 or so kids and distracted in my head by something I “tried” that did not work the way I wanted it to.
Innovation only happens on the heels of the things that didn’t go well. Yet, I am seduced by doing things the same so I don’t feel like an ass when it doesn’t work out.
I fear I might become my own little strip mall. Vanilla and repeatable.
When traveling I purposely avoid strip mall eating and instead try to find something untried and potentially scary.  I risk my evening tummy for an avoidance of the known and average.   25% of the time I am pleased, 15% of the time I get sick and the other percentage no change.
Risk was easier, BB. (before baby) Now that I am the sole financial support of this little guy and his Harvard college education I am often afraid of risk. Of losing a client, messing up his life.  I get hobbled by this.
So do the organizations I work in. We get hobbled when we have something we could lose. We go to the known so we can be safe.
Safe may be warm and cozy – it isn’t as interesting.  Or is it? Am I just a product of my childhood? My sister and didn’t just go around on the merry-go-round – we had to invent knew ways of throwing that ring into the mouth of the clown.  It was much more fun that way and she was a lot better at it. Each rotation we had a new way of hanging off the side of that horse – until they kicked us off after a couple of warnings.
Rambling.   I must get a better relationship with failure.
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