Fail.

Fail.

Think of this not as an observation, nor as a label, but as a command or order. Imagine what you would do if you were required to fail.

I've tried, at least to some extent, imagining what life would be like if I could not fail. In fact, it's quite a refreshing experience to try to live your life taking actions believing that you will not fail. What would you do differently if you knew in your heart that you would not fail?

People are afraid of failure. But failure in and of itself isn't really what we're afraid of. We're afraid of the consequences of failure. We're afraid of the judgments people will make of us, that they will link us to our failures. We're afraid that failures will ruin our lives, destroy good things, have long lasting and far reaching negative effects.

Believe it or not, failure is more forgiving than most people realize. Let's adjust the framework. I don't believe in thinking outside the box. Conceptualization is great and all, but experience is worth so much more. Don't think outside the box. If the box is wrong, redefine the fucking box. Make the box bigger, change its size, shape, position. The reason so many people have trouble thinking outside the box is because we all live in the box. To consider something outside the box is tantamount to saying just think like you're in a totally different universe. We can do that, sure, but we're limited by our experiences.

My good friend Mike Finch once said:

"He didn't think outside the box, he tossed the box in the water and threw rocks at it."

At the time, Mike was pointing out that the person in question didn't seem to even take the box (or the situation) seriously. As if the person were mocking the box. Given the situation, from our point of view "throwing rocks at the box" seemed like the wrong answer. It occurs to me now that maybe that's what you have to do sometimes. If you don't like where the box is, move it! If the box is floating, and you want it underwater, throw rocks at it!

Redefine the box. We've all experienced failure, but it doesn't have to be so paralyzing, or even negative. Here's your thought experiment: Think of all the GOOD things that have come from your failures. Think of the positives that have come from Plan B.

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
- John Keats

Failure as a pathway to success? Absolutely. So long as you're learning from your failures, you're gaining knowledge, perspective, experience, and understanding. You learn what doesn't work. One of my favorite examples of this is Thomas Edison. Most of Thomas Edison's experiments and inventions were failures - right up until he succeeded. As he was inventing the light bulb, Edison experimented with thousands of different substances and ways to create the device. He understood failure not as a set-back, but a step forward.

Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up
-Thomas Edison

Don't be afraid of failure. Embrace it. Learn from it. The more you fail, the more you know. The act of failing does not make a person a failure. Giving up however, does.

Go out there and fail! Fail until you are outrageously successful!