Failure Is Not What You Think It Is
I dedicate this blog posting to all HEART OF INNOVATION readers who are taking risks, conceiving new possibilities, letting go of the past, exploring outrageous horizons, and going beyond their limiting assumptions of what "failure" is.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Click below for some juicy quotes on the topic -- everyone from Miles Davis to Thomas Edison.
"An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots." -- Charles Kettering
"Do not fear mistakes. There are none." -- Miles Davis
"The way to succeed is to double your failure rate."
-- Thomas Watson, Founder of IBM
"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."
-- Henry Ford
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." -- Confucius
"Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself." -- Robert Louis Stevenson
"Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it." -- Horace
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." -- Bill Cosby
"I have not failed once. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work." -- Thomas Edison
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
-- Robert F. Kennedy
"No matter how well you perform, there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy." -- Sir Laurence Olivier
"If your life is free of failures, you're not taking enough risks."
-- H. Jackson Brown
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try." -- Beverly Sills
"I failed my way to success." -- Thomas Edison
"99 percent of success is built on failure." -- Charles Kettering
"Act as if it were impossible to fail." -- Dorothea Brande
"Failure is success if we learn from it." -- Malcolm Forbes
"You can only be as good as you dare to be bad." -- John Barrymore
"The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success." -- Paramahansa Yogananda
"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." -- Mary Pickford
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." -- Winston Churchill
"We are not retreating -- we are advancing in another direction."
-- Douglas MacArthur
"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -- Thomas A. Edison
"Fall seven times, stand up eight." -- Japanese Proverb
"Stumbling is not falling." -- Portuguese Proverb
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008"The Business of Life is Not a Life of Business."
Yes, it's true. The business of life is not a life of business. And only when you realize that, will your business (and your life) really flourish.
Research has shown that business people are more creative when they are happy. Indeed, a positive mood is one of the precursors to a culture of innovation.
If you are a manager, entrepreneur, or simply someone who gets absorbed in their work, you would be well-served to create more balance in your life. All work and no play not only makes Jack a dull boy, it screws up marriages, friendships, health, parenting, and ultimately the workplace environment.
Any thing specific you can do this week to walk the talk?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2008Doing More With Less
Idea Champions is happy to announce the launching of DOING MORE WITH LESS -- the perfect, cost-effective intervention to help your company keep innovating (while cutting costs) during recessionary times.
(You may need to tighten your belts, but you don't need to cut off your circulation to accomplish the results you want.)
What kind of challenges or opportunties might your team tackle in a DOING MORE WITH LESS session? Click below to find out...
"How can we share information with suppliers, vendors, and customers in order to streamline our innovation process?"
"How can we better predict market changes in order to increase our efficiencies?"
"How can we better predict what products and services will succeed?"
"How can we decrease re-work throughout our organization?"
"How can we identify and eliminate all unnecessary activities?"
"How can we consolidate common activities throughout the organization?"
"How can we empower our customers to perform some of the tasks that are now the sole responsibility of our staff?"
"How can we encourage our vendors and suppliers to become part of our product development process?"
"How can we take advantage of the cost-cutting happening throughout our industry in order to be more competitive?"
"How can we accomplish the same goals in half the time and half the cost?"
"How can we discover the most elegant solutions to our most pressing business problems?"
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2008LIVE! On the Web! Streaming Interview with Mitch Ditkoff: May 22
If you are a coach, manager, business leader, trainer, therapist, change agent, light bearer, or simply feel the need for some inspiration, log onto my interview with Lynn Kindler, of CoachingCommons.org next Thursday, May 22, 3:00 PM (EDT).
Click here to sign up and find out more.
60 minutes worth. No commercials. No sales pitch. No quiz, afterwards. Just useful insights about how you can be a catalyst for innovation, creative thinking, and extraordinary results.
(Will feature my new book.)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
The Inner Game
If you missed Tim Gallwey's classic Inner Game of Tennis the first time around, now's your chance to get it. Tim's book, the best selling sports psychology book in U.S. publishing history, is about as good as it gets. Using tennis as a metaphor, Tim has found an impeccable way to help athletes and non-athletes alike go beyond their inner obstacles and tap into their innate potential as human beings.
I'm speaking from experience, folks, because I worked with Tim for two years in the mid 1980's as part of his Inner Game corporation in LA. Tim doesn't just walk his talk, he lobs it, slams it, and puts just enough back spin on it to tease out the very best of his reader's and client's abilities.
Oh... he also gave me a wonderful testimonial about my new book, Awake at the Wheel: "A superb catalyst for anyone with the urge to bring their best ideas to reality."
Thanks, Tim! And thank all of you for making your effort to wake up and play the inner game of life.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:43 PM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2008Chuck Frey Rules! (and no, this is not a picture of him)
Many thanks to Chuck Frey, soulful Founder of www.innovationtools.com for his very kind review of my new book, Awake at the Wheel.
For any of you who don't know Chuck, this man is a gem. And he's done an extraordinary job putting together what I think is the best innovation portal on the web. If you haven't been to his site yet, go visit. It's a wonderful resource -- articles, links, reviews, research, whitepapers, products, blog -- and all things innovative.
We're all in this together, folks!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2008BOOK REVIEW: Growing Great Employees
I love this management development book by Erika Andersen. It's simple. It's beautifully written. And it's very useful.
It's clear that Erika is talking from her real-world experience and not the jive zone of wannabee consultants. It's rare to find a business book devoid of gobbledygook. This book is that rare book.
I thoroughly enjoyed the various ways in which Andersen coaches the reader through real-time challenges in the corporate workplace -- especially the art of hiring and listening.
Growing Great Employees reminds me of what Michelangelo said when asked how he made the David. "I just took away everything that wasn't."
It sure seems to me that the very talented Ms. Andersen has found that secret formula, taking away everything that didn't need to be in this book and leaving the reader with everything they need in order to understand what it means to manage people skillfully and with great humanity.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:42 PM | Comments (1)
May 06, 2008CREATIVE THINKING TOOL #44: First Name Basis
Conventional wisdom has it that the best time to name a new product is after you create it. Unconventional wisdom has it the other way around: first you give your product a name, then you create it.
With this approach, the name -- instead of merely being the description of your creation -- becomes the catalyst for its existence.
The key is to come up with a compelling name -- one that intrigues, delights, and has embedded within it the kind of multiple meanings that stimulate you enough to decode them.
Let's use the topic of my new book -- creativity -- as an example.
If I was looking to invent new products to hawk in the back of the book, but had no clue what they were, I might start by generating some creativity-themed names -- and then work backwards from there.
CreativiTeas: Exotic teas that boost brainpower.
CreativiTees: T-shirts featuring photos of creative geniuses on the front and their inspiring quotes on the back.
CreativiTease: A strip poker card game in which players match famous quotes on creativity with the people who said them.
Invent some products that are sparked by these names:
Shower Power?
Chakra Chip Cookies?
Cheeses of Nazareth?
Sing Kong?
USING THE TOOL:
1. Make up a compelling name for something -- even if you don't know what that "something" is. HINT: Humor, double entendre, and spelling variations are good catalysts.
2. Now that you have a compelling name for an imaginary product, brainstorm what this something might be.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2008Synchronicity, Cavemen, Beer, and the Invention of the Wheel
I've always been fascinated by the concept of "synchronicity" -- the phenomenon of things happening at the same time for no apparent reason. Some people think of this as mere "coincidence" -- the chronological equivalent of a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters and eventually coming up with a good book. Others see more esoteric forces at work. Carl Jung, for example.
No matter what your point of view, I still think it's pretty cool that there's been an explosion of caveman ads (and tv shows) in recent months -- just in time to set the scene for the appearance of my new book. Bud Lite, Geico, and Fedex have all gotten into the act. I'd like to tip my hat to all these fine organizations for getting cavemen into the consciousness of the book buying public in time for the May release of Awake at the Wheel.
Take a look at the most recent example: Bud Lite's superbowl ad.
Of course, all my philosophizing about synchronicity, Carl Jung, beer, and thousands of monkeys could simply be the work of a modern day Neanderthal -- me -- an over-caffeinated biped with a highly mortgaged home in Woodstock, New York, instead of a cave on the plains.
But who cares? The book is still good -- a great way to get out of the cave and radically increase your chances of manifesting your most inspired ideas.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2008Blog Talk Radio Interview
OK. It's official. My new book, Awake at the Wheel, hit the bookstores yesterday.
In celebration of its coming out, Wayne Hurlbert of BlogTalkRadio, did a 60 minute interview with me last night. Click here, if you want to listen. Click here if you don't want to listen. In either case, I hope things are clicking for you, no matter what you choose to do.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
