The Unexpected Benefit of Celebrating Failure

X--the Moon Shot Factory--prides itself on rewarding failure as motivation to pursue radical dreams. X is referred to as the moon shot factory to remind themselves to keep their dreams big, while grounding them in reality. As an educator, I think that a safe environment for failure is crucial.

X starts with a huge problem that exists in the world. World hunger, excessive deaths due to car accidents, the struggle of connecting the world, including developing countries, with internet access are all examples. To solve the problem of world hunger, X designed an innovative way of farming: vertically. This uses less resources than traditional farming and requires less space; however, it is too expensive to successfully sustain the project. Working to kill the project is crucial to achieving success.

This TedTalk highlights the crucial aspect of success that involves failure. Failure is a necessary part of life! The fear of failing prevents people from even attempting tasks. X has created a safe place to fail in which people are actually rewarded and praised when they successfully kill a project. As an educator, this video opened my eyes to the importance of setting goals and encouraging failure to foster success.

I have always been someone who is afraid to try something if I don't think the outcome will be perfect. I have spent hours agonizing over the smallest details to ensure everything is right. But, as X embodies, failure is necessary and should not be feared!