Sir Ken Robinson: Fearing Failure

Aside from the fact that he is absolutely hilarious,  Sir Ken Robinson is a captivating speaker.  I enjoyed listening to him and found myself agreeing with many of the points he made.  His position on the necessity for creativity and cultivating an environment that welcomes creativity early on in life was fascinating.  I was lucky to grow up in a family who embraced creativity before knowledge or logic.  Our creative ambitions were applauded more often than our academic achievements (perhaps there were fewer of those! ;) ).  Sir Ken's point about children being more creative as a result of their willingness to accept fail if it should arise, versus an adult fearing failure, was remarkable.  I have missed so many opportunities in my adult life because of my fear of looking stupid, dumb or inept.  A memory that is fresh in my mind that relates to this idea is my soccer career.  When I was little, I loved soccer.  I could not play for the life of me, but I loved going to the field and all the excitement surrounding the game.  I was the goalie (not sure why, I only stood about 3 1/2 ft tall...maybe it was to keep me off of the field).  As goalie, I saw it as my duty to dance in the goal, spin around and pick flowers.  I was bold and confident and quite creative with my time.  When senior year of high school rolled around, my friend Kati and I decided we would try out for soccer so we could "get a good workout before spring break".  We made excuses to make our attempt seem cool.  We were awful and I recall the feeling of failure and masking it with negativity and a "too cool for school" attitude. Truth is, I was just as bad as a senior as I was when I was in 2nd grade, but I did not fear failure early on.

I really appreciated this video and I hope that there are more thought-provoking videos to come!