Celebrate Your Failures to Achieve Success!
September 14, 2009
NO MORE CASH!!!
Mindi’s been writing a bit lately about going against the grain and doing things your own way. I couldn’t agree more; we’re all too susceptible to falling into a pattern and retreading the same paths over and over again. Progress and innovation are often stymied by our fear of the new and unknown. “But this is the way it’s always been done!” is the battle cry of the feeble minded; success is reached by trying something new, failing, learning, and adapting. It’s a life lesson we should be teaching our children and basing our society upon. In fact, one of my favorite children’s movies is “Meet the Robinsons” because in the movie the characters actually celebrate failure (or more accurately, the attempt that resulted in failure), and the incessant mantra is to “keep moving forward”. What a powerful concept.
So anyway, I was leafing around the Inbox this morning and stumbled across this article about Commerce restaurant in New York City deciding to no longer accept cash. This is undoubtedly where the country as a whole is headed; whether it takes 10 years or 30, everyone is eventually going to pay for everything with a swipe. Or a fingerprint. Or an eye reader. Who the hell knows; the point is that the owners of this place decided to challenge a longstanding convention – EVERYONE takes cash! – and go their own way. Whether you think it’s pure genius or utter stupidity, you have to admit it’s gutsy.
I especially liked this quote:
“If you don’t have a credit card, you can use a debit card,” said the restaurant’s co-owner, Tony Zazula. “If you don’t have a debit card, you probably don’t have a checking account. And if you don’t have a checking account, you probably shouldn’t be eating at Commerce to begin with.”
Okay, then. Makes sense, no? It did, apparently, to them.
Whether or not it makes sense to us is not the point. The lesson for us is to make conscious attempts to think outside the box, to challenge the validity of long-held beliefs, techniques, and strategies, and to fearlessly implement new ideas. And, of course, the most important piece – to celebrate our failures and keep moving forward.
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