How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Recorded
David MacMillan
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said elsewhere, not written here
I don’t know. That’s a terrible answer I realise, and everyone wants a nice straight forward answer. I think everyone, all scientists, have these kind of wacky ideas along the way, and some of them work and some of them don’t work. And this was one that, you know, came and was successful and went forward, and again it sounds obvious to say we were lucky – but we were lucky, you know, there’s way more ideas fail than ever succeed, and this was one that, you know, we were very excited about at the beginning, we thought it had a very low probability of success, but it took off, and it took off like gangbusters. That was wonderful to see.
Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 October 2022
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George Lucas
Filmmaker; creator of Star Wars and founder of Lucasfilm
Whenever you’re making a movie, especially when you’re writing, you always have self-doubts. I did the first location shooting in Tunisia.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement, Academy of Achievement interview, Skywalker Ranch, California, 1 June 1999
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It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be.
Recorded
Excerpt from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine, 1985
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Carlos Slim Helú
Businessman and investor; chairman of Grupo Carso and América Móvil
Well yes, but like I said, small mistakes or small failures. We take small failures very often. We have failures in investment. We have failures in operation, but no big mistakes or big failures. How do we take that? Like ordinary business.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement interview, 2 December 2007
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Oh, absolutely. I think most overachievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure. Unless failure gets very close and very nearby that fear doesn’t reach profound levels, but it drives us. It drives me to work very hard.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement, Academy of Achievement interview, San Francisco, California, 1 May 1997
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