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by Dan Oswald
I was traveling last week and had tossed a couple of recent copies of Harvard Business Review (HBR) into my briefcase before leaving home. So on the plane, I dutifully grabbed the April issue and was greeted by a cover that said, “We Studied 25,453 Companies over 44 Years to Find the 3 Rules for Success.” As was HBR’s intention, they had my attention.
I read the other day that people tend to learn more from their failures than they do their successes. You see, we chalk our successes up to hard work or even luck and don’t take much time to truly analyze why we were able to succeed. On the other hand, when we fail we are more likely to dissect the activities that led to our failure.
It’s like the baseball player who is on a hot streak. When his batting average is soaring, he takes little time to analyze why things are going so well. He’s just happy they are. But when he’s in a slump, the ballplayer will sit down and analyze every part of his approach to hitting. He’ll consider his game preparation and study video of his swing. He’ll look to make adjustments to his stance, his swing, or his bat to alter the outcomes that have become all too familiar. Like us, he takes his success in stride but obsesses over his failures.
Each week, I sit down at my computer to write. Sometimes I’ve been tossing an idea around in my head for the better part of the week and the words just flow. Other times, I’m racking my brain for something I feel is worthy of writing about. In one of those moments when the latter was more true than the former, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea . . .
Instead of coming up with something intelligent or, God forbid, witty to say, why not just rely on what others, who are much more intelligent AND witty than I, have already said?
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