Plus Points to Failing
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Whenever you get concerned or frightened of failure, listen to Paul Simon’s Graceland.
Listen and know that this Grammy Award winning album would never have happened if Paul Simon had not previously failed gloriously.
In Jeremy Marre’s Classic Albums: Paul Simon – Graceland documentary, Simon talks candidly about the tailspin he was in, personally and professionally, during the release of Hearts and Bones (preceding album). His past was disconnected to his present and uninspiring to his future.
A friend’s tape of South African music became an inspiration, a draw to an unknown in his work. He went to Johannesburg with no songs. He went with his producer, Roy Halee, and did long jam session with stunning South African artists.
Simon says himself that his failure was great timing because he could go to South Africa and experiment without any calling, checking up on him and asking for tracks. No one was giving him the time of day.
Plus, once he was back home with the tracks, editing and writing the songs, he realized some verses were working and others not. He was coming to his work with the assumption that each verse was the same. But the South African music had subtle changes that shook up his previously symmetrical writing in the folk rock world. Simon says the artists educated him to listen like never before.
Failure allows freedom to reinvent, dig deeper in who you are, and follow the unconventional leads.
“If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal.”
Go dance, passionately embracing going full out – failing gloriously.
SELF OBSERVATION
- How has a recent failure revealed opportunity for you?
- What’s an unconventional lead you’ve been thinking of following?
- What’s something you can do, today, that can step you closer to that risk?