11/12/2017
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." — Thomas Edison
Bill Mann
Motley Fool analyst
Dear Fellow Fools,
I spent time as an exchange student in Germany in high school. In my first week there, I wandered into town to look around. I got ready to return home and needed to catch a bus, so I walked up to a lady to ask her where the nearest bus stop was. "Bitte, wo ist die Bushaltstelle?"
Only problem was, I actually asked "Bitte, wo ist der Büstenhalter?"
"Excuse me, where is your bra?"
After a few moments of shock, recognition, painful quantities of laughter, embarrassment, correction, and explanation, I learned three things:
This lady actually was wearing a bra, thank you very much
The bus stop that I sought was "auf der nächsten Straße vorbei"
The correct German words for both bus stop and bra, and in which circumstances each should be used
Learning a foreign language is hard, and it requires you to get comfortable sounding like an idiot. But mistakes are where learning comes from ... and learning is a key tool for investors like you and me — and for the companies we buy into.
Amazon has an amazing culture of failure
At The Motley Fool, we love to talk about Amazon.com's culture of embracing mistakes. Being totally cool with failure is a key element to Amazon's rampant success.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos calls failure and innovation "inseperable twins" and says failure is "necessary for invention." He wants the size of Amazon's failures to grow as the company does, reasoning that smaller failures won't really move the needle. And having a culture of failure isn't just a growth path for Amazon. Bezos thinks making lots of mistakes — even huge ones like the Fire Phone — actually help keep Amazon relevant, making sure the company won't have to make a big bet someday just to stay in business.
3 ways mistakes can help you
Society has an amazingly negative view of failure, but the reality is that if you fail more and in new ways, you'll become a more successful person (and investor!). Here's why.
1. Failure creates humility. In an article I wrote in 2008, I coined the term "Harvard stupid" to describe the actions of people who are so accustomed to being right that they make mistakes that people with more humility might not have. Mistakes humble you and remind you that even if you know a lot, you still have plenty of growing to do.
2. Mistakes are a primary source of wisdom. Wisdom is different from intelligence. Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that tomatoes don't go in fruit salad. Through trial and error (and error and error), we create a learning curve. Unfortunately, our educational system and much of work life is based on penalizing errors. That's crazy.
Think about the Thomas Edison quote at the top of this article. What he gathered, from years of failed experimentation, was a path toward success. And not just success, but overwhelming, amazing success. If Edison hadn't failed so often and embraced it, instead of a lightbulb, he might have invented a super-candle and called it a day. And you know who we wouldn't be talking about today? Thomas Edison.
3. Mistakes improve mental flexibility. Bezos is a proponent of changing your mind when you need to, saying that life is complicated and that we should never trap ourselves by something we've said in the past. "Anyone who doesn't change their mind a lot is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in," he said. If you think or even suspect that something you have long believed is wrong, challenge it!
Go forth and fail, Fool!
Failing a lot is just failing if you don't learn from it. Every day, we must commit ourselves to making new mistakes. Making the same mistake over and over isn't learning. It's madness.
So get out there and fail! Question your most deeply held beliefs! Go get some more wrong into your life!
And while you're at it, have a great weekend.
Bill Mann
