Page 105 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

96 100 MPH THINKING: THINKING AT THE SPEED OF ENLIGHTENMENT

FAILURE NEVER FAILS

Of all the things we are afraid of, when it comes to new ideas, failure is
the top dog. And it’s a rabid Doberman. But 100 MPH Thinking is a
way to tame this wild beast called failure. Because 100 MPH Thinking
builds failure into the process.
When you come up with 10, 20, or 50 ideas, you’re allowed to fail 9,
19, or 49 times, yet still succeed. The highest-achieving people know
this, or at least they practice this.
Babe Ruth struck out more than anyone else in his era. Michael
Jordan missed more shots than the players he opposed. Thomas Edi-
son failed thousands of times on the way to finding the best filament for
the lightbulb.
Not only does 100 MPH
Thinking allow for failure, but it Show me someone who has never
failed, and I'll show you someone
builds failure into the process
who hasn't tried hard enough.
(see Chapter 20, “The Five Great-
est Barriers to Creativity”).
I worked with a bunch of aerospace engineers a
Albert Einstein
while back who seemed to grasp one of the benefits
of 100 MPH Thinking quite esoterically, with the concept they call
“fail-fast.”

SIMPLY BRILLIANT

It’s true that 100 MPH Thinking is not rocket surgery, as they like to
say at the Bizarro chapter of Mensa. One of the biggest mistakes peo-
ple make with this creative thinking tool is to overthink it and make it
more complex than it is.
Come up with more ideas and you’ll have more ideas. Do it quickly
and you’ll reap many other benefits. The secret is to not think about it.
As those great philosophers at Nike tell us, “Just do it.”
That great failure, Thomas
Edison, who registered 1,093
patents in his amazingly pro- You miss 100% of the shots
you don't take.
ductive career as an inventor,
said, “It’s not inspiration, it’s per-
spiration.” I’ll add my own twist to
that statement and say, “With 100 MPH
Hockey great
Thinking, coming up with great ideas is no sweat.” Wayne Gretsky