I like to listen to books. That’s right I said listen.
You see, I have a subscription to Audible.com and every month I’ve got my choice of some of the best new books available all recorded by their original authors or professional speakers.
Today, I’m going to review the book I’ve currently got loaded in my ipod: “Drive– The surprising truth about what motivates us” By Dan Pink.
This morning I took my wife to work with her bike in the trunk of the car. It’s a clear cool day with no wind. On a day like this she loves to ride home on her bicycle. It’s great exercise and she relaxes in the calmness of the experience. The duck and chicken farm she works part time at is only 7 minutes away by car so she can make it home by bike in less than fifteen.
When we got there I unloaded her bike and put it up by the door to the work area that is called the egg room. That’s where she collects the fresh duck eggs from a conveyor belt that slides through the nesting area inside the barn. After she does that she has to go into the barn itself and check for any ducks that may have collapsed and died overnight.
You know I have been leaning lately to the fact that failure has tons to do with how we arm our mindset from the strain future failures. It always looks like failure is getting the bad wrap of causing all the collateral damage when it really plays an important role in the production of all of our success events.
Today, let’s give failure an even portion of our appreciation. I Know that it seems to hurt us but I’ve come to the point where I now realize the truth.
Failure is our friend. Success our hero.
I’ll coin this:
Compared to success a failure is much more fulfilling. At least after I have one I don’t want another soon after.
More power to you
…David
-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I love the idea of crumple zones. They have saved a lot of lives in car accidents since they were introduced by Mercedes-Benz in the 1950’s.
But I have a new use of the term. What if a type of crumple zone was available for the human thinking so that when some negative experience happens in their lives people can feel less injury?
You’re a binary.
A binary usually refers to a system comprised of two parts. Like computer code is comprised of just two numbers 1 and 0. I’m borrowing on this idea a lot lately because, as a metaphor, it helps to illustrate this dynamic of what it is to be human and how success and failure defines us.
This whole duality in motivation thing is discussed rather succinctly in a wonderful TED talk by author Daniel Pink.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y[/youtube]
In my work with H.E.R.O. when I say that a human being is a binary I’m referring to the fact that these two parts of you, which reside in one body, are often in conflict. In religion the body is seen a egoistic and the soul as realistic. This idea goes back to the ancient Chinese who referred to this duality in humans as the “Yin” and the “Yang” many centuries ago.