Celebrate Failure

Image source: Calvin and Hobbes Twitter feed

For learning, celebrating failure is a superpower. It opens the door to asking the stupid question that wasn’t stupid at all, paves the way to trying something out to get practice and course correct, and blazes a trail for deeper insight.

Show me someone who fails a lot because they take risks, and I’ll show you someone who is learning a lot.

Show me someone who cheers a friend on to take risks and gives them props for courage when that friend fails and I’ll show you someone who makes those around them succeed in the end.

Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes, knew the secret. If you fall on your face or on your rump, pick yourself up and shout “TA-DAAA!!”

In the realm of knowledge, a dunce cap is much better than a crown. Those willing to feel stupid will gain knowledge in a way far beyond the imagination of those who let the fear of feeling stupid make them into cowardly slugs.

Celebrate failure along the way, and you will have a brilliant life.

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The Deep Mathematics of Dunce Caps:

Image source: Dunce Cap triangle homotopy equivalent to 𝑆1

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