afriquedeluxe
ILLIEN
I do quite a bit of writing on my blog, hence why I am rather quiet on ill. But a fellow member (dj loccdown) recommended I share this with illmuzik and I thought why didn't I do that in the first place! Here were are:
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FAILURE IS GOOD!
Just thought I would drop some thoughts on the concept of failure. I have come to embrace it, welcome it and in fact in some cases look forward to it. Now I am not saying people should go out and fail purposefully. What I am driving at is that I have come to the realization that failure is a good thing, if not a great thing! This paradigm shift came about partly from my own personal experiences in life and partly from hearing of and reading about other people’s experiences. All the great people seem to agree that more than often there are more failures than successes. A great example is that of Edison and his team, who went through thousands of wrong approaches before arriving at one that would lead to the now conventional light bulb.
It seems to me therefore that failure is a vital ingredient to success. The most obvious reason being that you will find out what doesn’t work and hopefully weed it out. It ends up working a little like the theory of evolution, i.e “survival of the fittest”. This is the greatest and most logical reason as to why you should embrace failure. If you bear this in mind while approaching a challenge, you will find that it isn’t as daunting, and fear or doubt is greatly reduced.
Just a quick example from my own personal life. At university, we had to give a presentation to a small audience in the second term of the first year. We had many weeks to prepare but I had left it till 2 nights before to actually do any form of work. Prior to this, any thought of the presentation got me shaking and panicking. Public speaking! “I hate it”, I thought to myself. The thought of having all those people looking at you while you attempt to put your words together and not do anything silly like drop your pen or forget your points was terrifying.
Naturally, I am a logical person. I always try to think with logic before letting emotions get in the way. So I got thinking. Why am I afraid of this task? What is it that is getting me so nervous? After some thought I concluded that failure was my main fear. Failure to present a coherent talk on the subject matter. Failure to remember my points, failure to basically just do a damn good presentation. What could I do about it? Well I had 2 days and I thought to myself, I have already failed in preparing well enough, so from that I have learnt that next time I must prepare well in advance.
I prepared as much as I could, memorized all the main points and decided to just go into the presentation with the sole purpose of doing it for experience and not worrying about what grade I got. I was still quite nervous, but I hear even superstars get nervous when going on stage despite having done it for years! Anyway, I went in there with the attitude of welcoming all the mistakes and cock ups I could do and promised myself that I would learn from them. If failure came, I would welcome it, for it would be the greatest learning experience.
All of a sudden I wasn’t as worried any more. I was actually looking forward to the presentation! I was nervous with excitement and not so much fear as some would put it. What a shift! Guess what happened, I went in there and was fortunate enough to get a 85% mark on the presentation. I actually enjoyed the presentation and wish to do more so I can learn more on what works and what doesn’t!
So I am writing this to my future self, incase I forget, and to anyone reading, FAILURE IS GOOD. Try your very best to avert it, however, if failure it becomes inevitable, embrace it and learn from it!
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Congratulations if you read through all that, because it's quite a lot! This can easily be applied to music and the industry itself. For instance if you have to go play something at an A&R meeting, it's a great attitude to have.
--------
FAILURE IS GOOD!
Just thought I would drop some thoughts on the concept of failure. I have come to embrace it, welcome it and in fact in some cases look forward to it. Now I am not saying people should go out and fail purposefully. What I am driving at is that I have come to the realization that failure is a good thing, if not a great thing! This paradigm shift came about partly from my own personal experiences in life and partly from hearing of and reading about other people’s experiences. All the great people seem to agree that more than often there are more failures than successes. A great example is that of Edison and his team, who went through thousands of wrong approaches before arriving at one that would lead to the now conventional light bulb.
It seems to me therefore that failure is a vital ingredient to success. The most obvious reason being that you will find out what doesn’t work and hopefully weed it out. It ends up working a little like the theory of evolution, i.e “survival of the fittest”. This is the greatest and most logical reason as to why you should embrace failure. If you bear this in mind while approaching a challenge, you will find that it isn’t as daunting, and fear or doubt is greatly reduced.
Just a quick example from my own personal life. At university, we had to give a presentation to a small audience in the second term of the first year. We had many weeks to prepare but I had left it till 2 nights before to actually do any form of work. Prior to this, any thought of the presentation got me shaking and panicking. Public speaking! “I hate it”, I thought to myself. The thought of having all those people looking at you while you attempt to put your words together and not do anything silly like drop your pen or forget your points was terrifying.
Naturally, I am a logical person. I always try to think with logic before letting emotions get in the way. So I got thinking. Why am I afraid of this task? What is it that is getting me so nervous? After some thought I concluded that failure was my main fear. Failure to present a coherent talk on the subject matter. Failure to remember my points, failure to basically just do a damn good presentation. What could I do about it? Well I had 2 days and I thought to myself, I have already failed in preparing well enough, so from that I have learnt that next time I must prepare well in advance.
I prepared as much as I could, memorized all the main points and decided to just go into the presentation with the sole purpose of doing it for experience and not worrying about what grade I got. I was still quite nervous, but I hear even superstars get nervous when going on stage despite having done it for years! Anyway, I went in there with the attitude of welcoming all the mistakes and cock ups I could do and promised myself that I would learn from them. If failure came, I would welcome it, for it would be the greatest learning experience.
All of a sudden I wasn’t as worried any more. I was actually looking forward to the presentation! I was nervous with excitement and not so much fear as some would put it. What a shift! Guess what happened, I went in there and was fortunate enough to get a 85% mark on the presentation. I actually enjoyed the presentation and wish to do more so I can learn more on what works and what doesn’t!
So I am writing this to my future self, incase I forget, and to anyone reading, FAILURE IS GOOD. Try your very best to avert it, however, if failure it becomes inevitable, embrace it and learn from it!
--------
Congratulations if you read through all that, because it's quite a lot! This can easily be applied to music and the industry itself. For instance if you have to go play something at an A&R meeting, it's a great attitude to have.
