TED Talk on Failure

In this TED Talk Astro Teller, the head of X, discusses the way he and his team comes up with innovative new ideas.  Instead of discouraging creativity and pushing for only research that gets results, Teller says that he encourages failure.  He wants people to be pushing boundaries and trying to discover new things no matter how unrealistic they may be.  Whenever someone who works for him decides to kill a project after putting in research, they get bonuses as a reward for it.  He argues that this makes it safe to fail at X, and because his employees are not afraid of the implications of failure they are able to push themselves out of their comfort zone and make new discoveries that they may have been afraid to even attempt before.

For me, this video made me reconsider what it means to fail.  I looked up the definition of failure and the most simple one is "a lack of success."  Some synonyms include defeat, loss, deterioration, and collapse.  Overall, failure is not seen in a very positive light.  Personally I think that this is due to narrow definitions of success.  I often find myself focusing too heavily on my grades, the end result of my work, and less on the process.  Because of this I am afraid to push myself to take risks.  Instead, I frequently take the more assured route that I know will earn me a decent grade.  

But what if I were able to fully express myself, to do my assignments creatively and in different ways?  Maybe my grades would suffer but maybe I would discover that I can achieve at another level that I did not think myself capable of.  Maybe I need to redefine my own definition of success in order to free myself from my fear of failure.  Success is not one goal, one single cumulative achievement.  Success is the journey.  There will be ups and downs but if I know that it is all a part of a positive process then I can continue to push myself.  I just have to keep telling myself that what really matters is that I am always growing.

In terms of children and youth, just like in the story Professor Doyle read to the class on Tuesday, certain things can seem like the most important thing in the world at the time to adolescents.  If I am still afraid of failure at age 20, that fear could potentially be far greater for children who rely even more on the opinions of others.  As a teacher I want to encourage my students to take risks and worry less about the final product.  By rewarding creativity and outside-the-box thinking, perhaps I can push students toward focusing on the process.