What to do when you fall.

I've been reading a lot about Oswald Avery and his work trying to find the 1918 influenza pathogen - see last post. I find this guy's devotion to the craft of exploration fascinating, and today he did not disappoint.

"Whenever you fall, pick up something."

When we fail at accomplishing our goal, read: when we fall, there will be other bits of information on the ground that we can pick up. Data points like ideas we abandoned, reflections on efforts that worked but didn't yield the right results, reflections on efforts that failed but we still persisted, and the like.

Our fails/falls invite us to review everything we did and pick up something that will help us as we step towards achieving our goals in the future.

Failure is only failure if you choose not to learn.

Do not let your fails and your falls go to waste.

Pick up something to use, leverage, and benefit from.

Thanks, Mr. Avery.

How to fail.

8 steps to achieving your goal inspired by an epidemiologist