WD40

Before I was coerced into the world of blogging, I would share a thought, weekly, with my staff.  My hope was to get them thinking, maybe inspire, but more than anything share something about me.  That since led to where this blog is today.  Since I have been overwhelmed this week, and I am trying to keep up with my goal of blogging once per week, I am sharing something I wrote on March 3rd, 2012.  Hope you enjoy it.

 

 

“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”  Ken Robinson

“Failure is not an end, it is a detour.” Zig Ziglar

I am not a very profound person.  I will never say anything clever, or witty, that people will repeat.  I am not sure if I just lack imagination or if I am afraid of failure.  But the two quotes above are quickly rising to the top of my list of profound thoughts or ideas.

I have long believed children are more pampered today than ever before.  I certainly was not as pampered as my children are today.  Maybe it is because we want our children to have more than we had as children, or it might just be I did not appreciate what my parents were doing for me, and I have blocked out those memories.  Either way, I think our society has created a “failure is bad” stigma and we have passed it on to our children.

I could give you story after story about failure turning to success.  How many times did Thomas Edison fail before creating the light bulb?  Has anybody heard the story of the product WD 40?  WD 40 stands for Water Displacement 40.  It took the scientist that created this product 39 failures before coming up with a product that displaced water and made screws easier to unscrew, and pulleys easier to pull, hence the name, WD 40.  Imagine if he would have given up after the first failure.  I cannot imagine anybody being wrong more than twice and continuing, yet he did it 39 times until he got it right.

As my daughter is learning to read, it is everything I can do to not help her when she struggles or fails.  It is very difficult for me to see my son’s frustration level rise every time he swings the bat and misses the ball.  But in both cases I have to let them fail.  Once they fail, it is up to me to encourage them to keep trying, or detour them in a different way, until we achieve the goal of reading a book, or hitting the ball.  On the flip side, it is awesome to see their eyes light up with satisfaction when they accomplish their goal.

Probably the most failure I have had in my life is in the spiritual realm.  I am constantly seeing my transgressions and failures.  For many years, I was a person who claimed to be Catholic, but never did anything remotely close to what a “good” Catholic should do.  But God continued to detour me in my life and put me in situations that led me where I am today.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming to be the best Catholic in the world.  If obedience to God was on measured on a 1-10 scale, 10 being God, I would rate myself about a four and a half.  Believe me; it is much higher than I would have rated myself 10 years ago.  I am so glad God did not give up on me after the 39^th try.  I am glad to know that God will continue to focus me in His direction, knowing that I will fail every now and then.  I am glad He will be there to turn me in the right direction or to get me back on the path if I start to stray.

What are the positive results of failure?  What could be positive about failure?  There is a lot that is positive about failure.  Almost every aspect of failure is positive, other than the failure itself.  David Mattson, the CEO of Sandler Systems (an international training and consulting organization) said “You learn about what not to do, which can stimulate creativity and accelerate your learning curve.  Accepting failure as normal gives you the freedom to try new things without putting your self-esteem at risk.”

What do you do when your kids fail?  Do you teach them to detour?  Have you prepared them to be wrong?  Have you encouraged them to find another solution, to find something original?  School is not just teaching a subject, giving a homework assignment or test, and moving on.  School is also about encouraging student to find that detour when they have failed.  They need to dig deep and be aware of why they failed and how they can improve themselves.  Accepting failure keeps us humble, honest about our development and gives us focus on who we can become.  This is one of the greatest tools we can provide our students for their journey through life.  School is about teaching students to come up with something original when they are wrong.  Let’s not deprive our children the feeling of failure but encourage accepting their failures to learn more about themselves pushing their thought process to new levels.  I can only imagine how many tries it will take for them to come up with something original as the next WD 40.