You're So Smart ;)

Just thinking today about an interaction I had a while back with a friend and colleague.

Courtney and I were sitting in a session on teacher leadership at SUNY Plattsburgh in Queensbury.  The facilitator had just directed us to a URL for some additional resources.  I'm pretty quick about those things and realized before the rest of the room that the link wouldn't work, unless you were case sensitive.

I pointed this out to the facilitator and she quickly redirected the room.

Courtney, very tongue-in-cheek, said, "You're so smart."

My reply was, "That's just because I fail faster than everyone."

I originally said it just as a snappy comment; it made Court chuckle.

But the more time passes, the more I think it was probably accurate. We only succeed through trial and error. There are countless famous examples of this already- Abe Lincoln, Michael Jordan, Einstein, Eminem.

I had a student teacher who was riffing on students who get hung up on having to write the introduction first.  He wanted them to get past this sticking point and just move on. In full Irish brogue he said to me, "Ok, write down your intro, then just bloody delete it!"

Anyway, I know I'm not covering new ground really.  But a quick quip just got me thinking about embracing failure on the path to success.