Dyson loves talking about the importance of failure in his life as an industrial designer. “I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right,” said Dyson. “There were 5,126 failures, but I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.” He goes on to argue that we often fool ourselves into believing that successful products emerge from a moment of “effortless brilliance.” To him, failures provide keen insights that enable the invention of unique products. Dyson explains: “We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually.”
failure
living in the real world
One of the dangers of the internet world is that we see things in extreme – things are either brilliant or dreadful. We can look at friends facebook profiles and can ponder in jealousy at the amazing lives that people have whilst getting upset that we are unable to match their levels. Problems can then befall and our false assumptions may make us wonder why it ‘always happens to us’ but for others life is seemingly a smooth journey of constant rejoicing.
The truth of life is somewhat different – we all face times of difficulty, struggle, pain, triumph and success. Admittedly, they may be in different measure but we all face them, the challenge comes from how we address them.
hutchblog 