The R.U.D. requirement for spectacular innovation
Back in May, Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, hit a newsworthy failure.
They were running the ninth flight test for their rocket and its booster engines.
I don’t know exactly what went wrong, but, as Elon put it, somewhere in mid-flight the unmanned rocket experienced “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
😂
That’s one way to think about it!
I admire Elon’s attitude here.
I’m naturally more of a glass half empty kind of guy. Prone to the more critical side of things. (Some call this being “pragmatic” or being a “realist” but I think that’s just a cover for their own ego. I’ve learned to just accept that I’m a bit more critical and a bit less optimistic.)
As Popeye said, “I yam what I yam.” ⚓
Now, here’s something else I admire about Elon:
He’s not afraid of failing.
In fact, he embraces failure because it’s the price you must pay in order to do great & innovative things.
Sure, it’s easy enough to do something someone else has already done. They’ve carved the path, blazed the trail so to speak. You can just walk in their footsteps.
But innovation?
That is going to come with failures.
And for a person as big as Elon and as noteworthy as SpaceX, failure is gonna be spectacular.
Yet he’s happy to pay that price to move humanity forward.
Which got me thinking:
What price am I willing to pay to move myself & my business forward?
I admit, I shy away from failure.
It’s the perfectionist in me. Instead of trying at a thing and failing, I’d rather never do the thing in the first place. My stupid brain tries to convince me that, “if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing perfectly.”
Well, that’s some trash thinking right there!
🗑️
All kinds of things are worth doing, even if — especially if — I can’t get them perfectly right the first time.
Do you remember learning to tie your shoes?
Probably not specifically, but I bet you can think back and remember feeling frustrated at how complicated it was to tie your shoes. I remember that feeling. And yet, after loads of failure and retrying, I eventually learned to tie my shoes.
Now, it’s just muscle memory.
What about learning to drive a car?
I remember my dad taking me out on the road. I was super stressed, and concentrated hard on keeping the car between the yellow line and the white line. I was making all kinds of little adjustments, constantly.
My dad looked at me and said, “Look further out, son. You’re too focused on what’s right in front of you. That’s why you have to keep making adjustments. Look further down the road and relax.”
(Okay, not an exact quote, but that’s basically what he said.)
Once I looked further, I found that it was easier to keep the car rolling smoothly.
Plus, you know, the added benefit of seeing if there’s danger in the distance!
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make:
Learning new skills comes with failure — embrace that reality or you’ll never grow.
I’ve had to force myself to accept this cost, and push back against my natural perfectionism. The results have been accomplishing far more than I could ever have done if I tried to get it perfect the first time.
Right now, my best money making skill is trading options.
Specifically, the almost brain-dead simple way I do it. No complicated verticals, or butterflies, or iron condors (if you know, you know the pain).
In fact, I don’t even buy options to open trades.
Almost everything I do is sell Puts.
Super simple.
You can learn this, too.
My course & community (where I teach my system for trading options) is open, though it is still a work in progress. If you want, you can spend seven days checking out the community, for free.
More info here:
— Ricky Ketchum