Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality).

If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.

The attempt to avoid failure makes failure more likely.

Turn pain into progress. To be wrong as fast as you can is to sign up for aggressive, rapid learning.

There is no growth or success without change.

Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.

When it comes to creative endeavors, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It’s counterproductive.

I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth.

In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen.

Failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth.

Being open about problems is the first step toward learning from them… We must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.

You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.