Freedom to Fail

“SpaceX — which Musk touts as replacing NASA and colonizing Mars — has been a literal failure to launch. So many of its rockets have burned up or crashed that Musk, for reasons unknown, has made a blooper reel.” link

I’m neither a fan or critic of Musk, I’m not looking to defend his politics, recent comments or his behavior, however, the author of the article made a common mistake – we confuse things not going as expected with failure. Musk, whatever you may think of him, doesn’t appear to fall into this trap.

The “blooper reel” of SpaceX seems more like a healthy acceptance of failure for what it is – a very normal part of any process that seeks to accomplish something new or different. In many cases, success may not mean getting to what we expect or want.

“Success” and “failure” are ineffective terms because they are:

• Usually, a static point in time conclusion– what is desirable today may not be five years from now
• Usually narrow– wealth or popularity as examples
• Usually inaccurate– having a goal of exercising 5 times a week from 0 times a week and being able to do “only” 3 = failure.
• Limiting-we can become blind to other opportunities or innovations that are unintended but still valuable.

This definition of success (usually) only makes things “worth it” if there is a social or monetary profit – a hard win; as if the inherent learning that comes with failure is meaningless.  This is hurdle number one to progress on both an individual and social scale. Not accepting failure or even encouraging it cripples the healthy risk-taking needed for growth.  This is not to say that risks which predictably lead to ineffective consequences should be encouraged or that we shouldn’t learn from undesired outcomes – only that there should be enough slack to allow us to explore more than what we’re comfortable with or what everyone believes is possible.

We all have our blooper reel, and in that respect, we can all stand to be a bit more like Musk; mindful of the process to a goal, the value each part of the process holds and celebrating each and every aspect – whether it leads to what we think we want or something entirely different.