The World’s Greatest Failure!

I go to a “Who Moved My Cheese” seminar.

That was an hour and half I’ll never get back. We learned that the key to optimism is to never, ever, ever take the blame for anything. Mess up on a report for work? Boss is a moron who doesn’t understand the content – not that you in any way could have made the information presented easier to understand or put it in the correct form or wrote in complete sentences or used spell check.

To be an Optimist you have to keep those failures external it’s about the "personalness" of the event -. "Wow, I missed that deadline because I was I.M –ing with Lars from Norway", My boss needs to be more open to change.

Failure is only temporary. - "I lost that file, wanna go get lunch?"

Successes are permenant - There are 327 files I did not lose! Look! Here is a whole one right here! It’s right where it is supposed to be! This one is not lost at all! That is so great! Keeping track of 327 files is hard! I can’t believe I only lost one. I am going to parlay this into a whole multinational dedicated to filing! I rock so hard! .


It’s also all about how pervasive the successes is - "I filed all the correspondence and thus I am the most amazing file clerk ever and this victory over paperwork has made me able to dream about a world where I am in a supervisory capacity over other file clerks who will beg to hear me speak on my brilliant file clerking skilz. They will learn at my knee and go on to cover the world with efficient filing and tidy files. I wonder who will play me in the inevitable biopic? My victory over this bin of files will make the world a better place, will bring on world peace and will feed the hungry!".

Failure for the optimist is limited in scope - "I didn’t get the bin filed, bummer. Time for lunch!".

The Pessimist on the other hand has the really nasty habit of taking blame for things that went wrong.

Failure is internal - "I suck, I did badly, I should drown myself in the toilet. Why did I wake up this morning? Everything I touch turns to shit. Kill me now! I’m just going to mess it up if I try it myself".

Success is external - "Everyone else did so well on that report! The office is sure to get a commendation from HQ for this I hope no one asks me what my contributions were".

Failure is permanent – "I lost the file and I’m never, ever, ever going to find it. The archive will be incomplete and it’s all my fault. We are sure to get sued. I shall quit with out notice and flee the country".

Successes are temporary – "I found it, but that only means I’m going to lose something else."

For the pessimist it’s the pervasiveness of his failures that make him a real buzz kill.

Failure is universal – "I did it wrong! I set it up wrong and I can’t fix it! This is going to suck for the whole office and quite possibly every employee of the company! I’m going to get fired and my boss will too! This is the biggest mistake ever, by anybody in any capacity. People may actually die as a result of my faulty sticker putting on cover sheet skills. I hope I die first".

Successes are limited – "Yeah. a couple of people did not die, but it’s really wasn’t that big a deal anyway".

You know if Shrub could find his "cheese" the world would be a better place. The seminar is pretty much about dealing with changes and learning to chart progress towards inevitable change so as to not be surprised by change when it does happen, everything changed and he is still in the same empty room looking for his long gone cheese.