It turns out that the 25th of May is international … or perhaps intergalactic … Towel Day. Who knew? The holiday, which is in its 8th year of observance, apparently developed as a tribute to the late sci-fi writer Douglas Adams, author of the famed Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, who died of a heart attack in May, 2001.
I mention it here because Douglas Adams and all his colorful characters, from Ford Prefect to Zaphod Beeblebrox, were such wonderful advocates and role models for successfully navigating the unpredictable and uncharted aspects of life and the universe. (Or, as a the third book in the series would phrase it, Life, The Universe, and Everything.) [click to continue…]
As we push the limits of mind and body, any of us … entrepreneurs, athletes, students, or people striving toward any goal at all … face a high probability of encountering failure. Business ventures can collapse, runners sometimes have to drop out of races, and rejection letters arrive in the mail. Conventional wisdom says that a dose of failure can be instructive. But as Lane Wallace wrote in a previous post, that may not actually be the case.
If that’s true … if we don’t learn as much from failure as we could, or perhaps should … why is that? Here are a few interesting perspectives on the question, worth checking out. [click to continue…]
We’re introducing a new element into the site today. Well, okay … it’s not completely new, in that often, we pose questions in individual posts, directly or indirectly. But in a kind of “best of the Web” tradition, our periodic “Question of the Day” feature will take particularly complex or challenging questions and explore some of the differing viewpoints, arguments, and answers we can find on the topic. [click to continue…]
In an earlier post, I wrote about a Harvard study that looked at the success rates of “serial entrepreneurs” based on several factors, including an entrepreneur’s previous track record. The results included some interesting differences in success rates (repeated at the end of this post*).
A New York Times article on the study quoted one of the study’s authors, Paul A. Gompers, as saying the results indicated that, contrary to Silicon Valley’s belief in the potential educational value of failure, “for the average entrepreneur who failed, no learning happened.”
Maybe. My earlier post offered some other possible conclusions. But Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, has some additional, interesting thoughts on the subject. [click to continue…]
Christopher Buckley recently wrote a terrific article on his parents, Pat and William F. Buckley, in the New York Times Sunday magazine. The younger Buckley reflects on the character of great men—a term he uses with great particularity—observing that his father was one and that there are really only a few great men (and I suspect he’d say even fewer great women).
Great men tend to assert total control over their domains, observes Buckley.
I love reading about characters like William F. Buckley—brilliant, commanding, confident, overbearing—sorts who do not suffer fools gladly. Not that I’d want to be the son of such a person (the senior Buckley walked out of his son’s Yale graduation because he was bored), but there is something absolutely captivating about a life lived large. [click to continue…]
For anyone interested in reading some more posts/thoughts/essays of mine, I’ve just started writing as a regular online correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. Look under the “Correspondents” tab for my blog: “The Uncommon Navigator.” Next week, I’m also going to be guest-posting for Andrew Sullivan while he’s on vacation. So check out his blog next week, too!
Excerpts from a couple of my recent posts: [click to continue…]
Recent news about Apple’s hastily retracted “Baby Shaker” application for its iPhone came as a surprise to many people who revere Apple products. But here’s another piece of encouragement for anyone trying to make their way in the world with something new … and a reminder that, despite populating the world with white earbuds and sleek iPhones, Apple’s road to success has included any number of products that have failed spectacularly on the market. Take a look at this gallery, by Bryan Gardiner of Wired magazine, for misses created by the company that seems incapable of doing wrong. [click to continue…]
Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine, often says that one of the things that distinguishes American culture from others is our passionate belief in second acts. Even if we fail at something, or lots of things, Americans believe in the power of second chances. Of starting over. Of learning from our mistakes and using that accumulated wisdom to succeed a second time.
In innovative or entrepreneurial fields, the idea of not only learning from failure, but the importance of failure, is even more pervasive. Without the willingness to take risks, including the risk of failing, nothing new … or at least, nothing significantly new, would ever be discovered. [click to continue…]
Being self-employed doesn’t remove the stress in your life. It just changes it. The uncertainty goes up, but so does the feeling of control over your destiny. And, if you go about it right (meaning, you pursue self-employment in a field you’re passionate about) so does your overall sense of happiness and fulfillment. At least you get to love what you spend all those hours working at and worrying about.
And that, in turn, saves money.
I always suspected this was true, although my opinion was based on a survey sample of one. [click to continue…]
This is for anyone who’s watched 20-somethings tear around with all their boundless energy, fearless daring, indomitable confidence … and felt a bit old or tired. Or for anyone who’s wondered, after learning some hard lessons, struggling to balance competing needs and life obligations, and finding a few unwanted aches in their joints, if perhaps they’ve passed the point of having the fire or ability to pursue a dream, start a business, or take on some challenging physical adventure. [click to continue…]
