22 Jul 2020

Understand, unlock, unleash your potential – On getting things wrong

 

Each week, we introduce one talk to help you understand more about your potential; one thought to unlock your potential; and one tip you can take to unleash your potential for the good of our world.

One talk to understand

In Sir Ken Robinson’s inspiring Ted talk, ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity？’ he says,

Now, I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original — if you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way.

 

We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

 

One thought to unlock

Are you prepared to be wrong? When I was working with Google, I was surprised by an informal motto they had – break things fast. Even though it was painful to make mistakes, Googlers seemed keener to break things, and learn from them. They rapidly introduced new ideas, executed them, and learnt from the success and failure of it.

Today, in the things you do, ask yourself, ‘Am I okay with being wrong?’

 

One tip to unleash

Today, instead of planning what will happen, execute it. Ship it. Stop thinking about it. You will learn from the feedback that comes after you execute the idea, rather than thinking about what might or might not happen.

 

P.S. We are running a webinar on creating better CVs with Human Resources Expert Michael Tan on 25 July, 1500 (GMT+8). Join us here if you can!

 

How am I doing?

I would love to hear your feedback. In return, I will send you an e-copy of my favourite book!

Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your time and hope that I have sparked thought through this short letter. 

 

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