{"id":1670,"date":"2006-06-13T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=1670"},"modified":"2014-08-27T07:49:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:49:26","slug":"fruits-of-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/06\/fruits-of-failure.html","title":{"rendered":"The Fruits of Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I believe in <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/05\/new-thoughts-on-failure.html\">celebrating failure<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/05\/redefining-failure-masterplan.html\">redefining it<\/a> as a positive, seeing failure as <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/05\/building-success-one-failure-at-time.html\">a sign of progress<\/a>. Apparently, Scott Westcott at the National Federation of Independent Businesses agrees, at least a little. His article, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfib.com\/object\/IO_27577.html\">The Fruits of Failure<\/a>, explores some examples, and encourages giving failure awards, and I applaud him for researching and writing it.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Westcott comes off as timid. Tom Watson&#8217;s admonition to <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/05\/failure-quote-of-day-put-failure-to.html\">double your rate of failure<\/a> to achieve success worries him:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While doubling a failure rate could doom many small businesses, allowing for some strategic failures could end up boosting your business and employee morale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think Westcott is wrong on this point. <span>Doubling the failure rate does not spell doom.<\/span> Doubling the failure rate means doubling the activity rate for innovation. Unless there is something fundamentally wrong, that means <span>doubling the success rate, too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rural entrepreneurs can&#8217;t afford to be timid. The enemy of small town businesses isn&#8217;t failure; it&#8217;s stagnation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/smallbizsurvival\/small+biz\" rel=\"tag\">small biz<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/smallbizsurvival\/rural\" rel=\"tag\">rural<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/smallbizsurvival\/entrepreneurship\" rel=\"tag\">entrepreneurship<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/smallbizsurvival\/failure\" rel=\"tag\">failure<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/smallbizsurvival\/success\" rel=\"tag\">success<\/a><\/p>\n<p>New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/guided-tour.html\"> Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I believe in celebrating failure, redefining it as a positive, seeing failure as a sign of progress. Apparently, Scott Westcott at the National Federation of Independent Businesses agrees, at least a little. His article, The Fruits of Failure, explores some examples, and encourages giving failure awards, and I applaud him for researching and writing it. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,21],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8432,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}