We should aim for perfection----and stop
fearing failure
Have you ever heard of typosquatting? Well, typosquattingis where companies like Google post advertisements on websites that arecommonly miskeyed, and then they sit back and rake in millionsbanking onthe fact that you're visiting something like gmale.com ormikerowesoft.com.
00:16
(Laughter)
00:17
It just seems kind of silly, doesn't it?
00:21
How about this? On February 28, an engineer atAmazon made a similar, seemingly small key error.Only I say seeminglysmall because this one little typo on Amazon's supercode produced amassive internet slowdown that cost the company over 160 milliondollars in the span of just four hours.
00:40
But this is actually really scary. You see, recently, anemployee at the New England Compound, which is a pharmaceuticalmanufacturer, didn't clean a lab properly and now 76 people havedied and 700 more have contracted meningitis.
00:54
I mean, these examples are crazy, right? When did we cometo live in a world where these types of typos, common errors, thisdo-your-best attitude or just good enough was acceptable? At some point, we'vestopped valuing perfection, and now, these are the type of results that weget. You see, I think that we should all seek perfection, all thetime, and I think we need to get to it quick.
01:19
You see, I run a training facility where I'm responsible forthe education of professional delivery drivers, and in my line ofwork, we have a unique understanding of the cost of failure, the costof just 99 percent, because in the world of professionaldriving, just 99 percent of the job means somebody dies.
01:37
Look, a hundred people die every day due to vehicularcrashes. Think about that for a second. That's like the equivalent offour commercial airliners crashing every week, yet we still can'tconvince ourselves to pay perfect attention behind the wheel. So I teachmy drivers to value perfection. It's why I have them memorize our131-word defensive driving program perfectly, and then I have themrewrite it. One wrong word, one misspelled word, one missing comma, it's afailed test. It's why I do uniform inspections daily. Undershirts arewhite or brown only, shoes are black or brown polished leather andfrankly, don't come to my class wrinkled and expect me to let youstay. It's why I insist that my drivers are on time. Don't be late,not to class, not to break, not to lunch. When you're supposed to besomewhere, be there. You see, I do this so that my studentsunderstand that when I'm training them to drive a car and Isay, "Clear every intersection," they understand that I meanevery traffic signal, every cross street, every side street, every parkinglot, every dirt road, every crosswalk, every intersection without fail.
02:44
Now, new students will often ask me why my class is sodifficult, strict, or uniform, and the answer is simple. You see,perfectionism is an attitude developed in the small things and thenapplied to the larger job. So basically, if you can't get the littlethings right, you're going to fail when it counts, and when you'redriving a car, it counts. A car traveling at 55 miles an hour coversthe length of an American football field in just under four and a halfseconds, but just so happens to be the same amount of time it takesthe average person to check a text message. So I don't allow my drivers tolose focus, and I don't accept anything less than perfection out of them.
03:21
And you know what? I'm tired of everybody else accepting 99percent as good enough. I mean, being less than perfect has realconsequences, doesn't it? Think about it. If the makers of our creditcards were only 99.9 percent effective, there would be over a millioncards in circulation today that had the wrong information on the magneticstrip on the back. Or, if the Webster's Dictionary was only 99.9 percentaccurate, it would have 470 misspelled words in it. How aboutthis? If our doctors were only 99.9 percent correct, then every year,4,453,000 prescriptions would be written incorrectly, and probably evenscarier, 11 newborns would be given to the wrong parents every day inthe United States.
04:05
(Laughter)
04:07
And those are just the odds, thank you.
04:09
(Laughter)
04:10
The reality is that the US government crashed a1.4-billion-dollar aircraft because the maintenance crew only did 99percent of their job. Someone forgot to check a sensor. The realityis that 16 people are now dead, 180 have now been injured, and 34million cars are being recalled because the producers of a car airbagproduced and distributed a product that they thought was, you know, goodenough. The reality is that medical errors are now the third leadingcause of death in America.250,000 people die each year because somebodywho probably thought they were doing their job good enough messedup. And you don't believe me? Well, I can certainly understandwhy. You see, it's hard for us to believe anything these days whenless than 50 percent of what news pundits say is actually grounded infact.
04:58
(Laughter)
05:00
So it comes down to this: trying our best is not goodenough. So how do we change? We seek perfection and settle fornothing less.
05:13
Now, I know. I need to give you a minute on that, because Iknow what you've been told. It probably goes something like, perfection isimpossible for humans, so therefore, seeking perfection will not only ruinyour self-esteem but it will render you a failure. But there's theirony. See, today we're all so afraid of that word failure, but thetruth is, we need to fail. Failure is a natural stepping stone towardsperfection, but at some point, because we became so afraid of that idea offailure and so afraid of that idea of perfection, we dismissed itbecause of what might happen to our egos when we fall short. I mean, doyou really think that failure's going to ruin you? Or is that just theeasy answer that gets us slow websites, scary healthcare and dangerousroads? I mean, are you ready to make perfection the bad guy in allthis? Look, failure and imperfection are basically the same thing. Weall know that imperfection exists all around us. Nothing and nobody isperfect. But at some point, because it was too difficult or toopainful, we decided to dismiss our natural ability to deal withfailure and replace it with a lower acceptance level. And now we'reall forced to sit back and just accept this new norm or good-enoughattitude and the results that come with it.
06:27
So even with all that said, people will still tell me, youknow, "Didn't the medical staff, the maintenance crew, theengineer, didn't they try their best, and isn't that goodenough?" Well, truthfully, not for me and especially not in theseexamples. Yeah, but, you know, trying to be perfect is so stressful,right?And, you know, Oprah talked about it, universities study it, I betyour high school counselor even warned you about it. Stress is bad for us,isn't it? Well, maybe, but to say that seeking perfection is toostressful is like saying that exercise is too exhausting. In bothcases, if you want the results, you've got to endure the pain. Sotruthfully, saying that seeking perfection is too stressful is just anexcuse to be lazy.
07:09
But here's the really scary part. Today, doctors,therapists and the nearly 10-billion- dollar-a-year self-helpindustry are all advocating against the idea of perfection under thisguise that somehow not trying to be perfect will save your self-esteem andprotect your ego. But, see, it's not working, because the self-helpindustry today has a higher recidivism rate because it's more focused onteaching you how to accept being a failure and lower your acceptancelevel than it is about pushing you to be perfect.
07:38
See, these doctors, therapists and self-help gurus are allfocused on a symptom and not the illness.The true illness in our society todayis our unwillingness to confront failure. See, we're more comfortableresting on our efforts than we are with focusing on our results. Likeat Dublin Jerome High School in Ohio, where they name 30 percent of agraduating class valedictorian. I mean, come on, right? Somebody hadthe highest GPA. I guarantee you it wasn't a 72-way tie.
08:08
(Laughter)
08:09
But, see, we're more comfortable offering up an equaloutcome than we are with confronting the failure, the loser or theunderachiever. And when everybody gets a prize, everybodyadvances, or everybody gets a pay raise despite results, theperfectionist in all of us is left to wonder, what do I have to do to getbetter? How do I raise above the crowd?
08:27
And see, if we continue to cultivate this culture, wherenobody fails or nobody is told that they will fail,then nobody's going to reachtheir potential, either. Failure and loss are necessary forsuccess. It's the acceptance of failure that's not. Michelangelo iscredited with saying that the greatest danger for most of us is not thatour aim is too high and we miss it, but it's too low and we reachit. Failure should be a motivating force, not some type of patheticexcuse to give up.
08:56
So I have an idea. Instead of defining perfectionism as adestructive intolerance for failure, why don't we try giving it a newdefinition? Why don't we try defining perfectionism as a willingness to dowhat is difficult to achieve what is right? You see, then we canagree that failure is a good thing in our quest for perfection, andwhen we seek perfection without fear of failure, just think about what wecan accomplish.
09:21
Like NBA superstar Steph Curry: he hit 77 three-point shotsin a row. Think about that. The guy was able to accurately deliver anine-and-a-half inch ball through an 18-inch rim that's suspended 10 feetin the air from nearly 24 feet away almost 80 times withoutfailure. Or like the computer programmersat the aerospace giant LockheedMartin, who have now written a program that uses 420,000 lines ofnear-flawless code to control every aspect of igniting four million poundsof rocket fuel and putting a 120-ton spaceship into orbit. Or maybelike the researchers at the Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City,Missouri, who have now developed a device that can complete humangenome coding in just 26 hours. So this device is able to diagnose geneticdiseases in babies and newborns sooner, giving doctors an opportunityto start treatments earlier and potentially save the baby'slife. See, that's what happens when we seek perfection.
10:23
So maybe we should be more like the professionalathlete, or we should be more like that tireless programmer, or likethat passionate researcher. Then we could stop fearing failure and wecould stop living in a world filled with the consequences of good enough.
10:36
Thank you.
10:37
(Applause)
中文翻译如下：
你们听说过“误植域名”这个概念吗？ “误植域名” 就是像谷歌这样的公司 在那些时常被打错网址的网站上刊登广告， 然后他们就可以高枕无忧地赚上几百万元， 这是因为你有可能会访问 像 gmale.com， 或 mikerowesoft.com 这样的网站。
00:28
（笑声）
00:29
听起来相当荒唐，不是吗？
00:33
那如果是这种情况呢？ 在2月28日，一位 亚马逊网站的工程师 犯了一个相似的错误， 看似微小，实则不然： 他把亚马逊官网的超码打错了一处， 造成了大规模网络瘫痪， 使公司在短短四小时内 亏损了超过 1.6 亿美元。
00:52
这其实相当吓人。 最近在新英格兰药物合成中心， 一位职员 没有妥善清理实验室。 导致76人身亡，超过700人感染了脑膜炎。
01:06
我只能说，这些例子相当疯狂， 不是吗？ 我们从何时开始竟活在了 一个连错字，得过且过的态度 这样的惯常毛病都随便凑合的世界里？ 我们不再重视完美， 现在就会得到这样的结果。 我觉得我们无论在什么时候 都应该追求完美， 并且刻不容缓。
01:31
我在经营一个训练机构， 负责专业运输司机的训练。 在我们这个行业， 我们对于失败的代价， 也就是“99%完美”的代价 有着独到的见解。 因为对于专业司机来说， 只满足于做到99%， 意味着有人会死于车祸。
01:49
这么说好了， 每天会有一百个人 在交通意外中身亡。 花一点时间仔细想想。 那就相当于每个礼拜 有四架民航飞机坠毁， 但是我们还是无法让自己 在驾驶座上集中100%的注意力。 所以我教导我的司机们 珍惜完美的价值。 因此我要求他们 牢记我们131字的谨慎驾驶口诀 一丝不差， 然后我会让他们把它写下来。 但有错字或拼写标点错误，都算不及格。 这也是我每天都要检查 仪容仪表的原因。 汗衫只能是白色或棕色的， 鞋子只能是黑色或棕色的皮鞋， 坦白地说，如果你穿着有皱褶的衣服，别指望我会让你听我的课。 这也是我要求我的司机们 要准时的原因。 不要迟到，不管是上课，休息，吃午餐都一样。 当你应该出现在一个地方， 就要出现。 我做这些事，就是想让我的学生知道 当我在训练他们开车时， 如果我说， “检查每个交叉口，” 他们就会知道我说的是 每个交通标志，每个交叉路口， 每条小巷，每个停车场，每条泥路，每个人行道， 每一个交叉口 ，都要毫无差错。
02:56
新学生常常会问我， 为什么我的课那么困难，严格，制式化， 而答案其实很简单。 完美主义是一种态度，先从小事做起 然后才能运用到大事上。 所以简单来说，如果连小事都无法做好的话， 在重要时刻你就会失败， 而当你开车时，这就是重要时刻。 一辆以每小时55英里的速度行驶的汽车 可以在4秒半的时间内 行驶过一整个美式足球场， 并且这刚好和一个人查看一条短信 所需要的平均时间相同。 所以我不允许我的司机分散注意力， 并且我不能接受他们做的任何不完美的事情。
03:32
所以，你们知道吗？ 我受够了其他所有人接受的 99%就足够了的这种观点。 不达到完美是会有 真实后果的，不是吗？ 想想看， 如果信用卡制造商 只保证99.9%的合格率的话， 就会有一百万张正在流通的信用卡 背面的磁条里带着错误的信息。 或者，如果韦伯斯特词典只有99.9%的正确率的话， 它里面就会有470个拼错的单词。 再想想看， 如果我们的医生的诊断 只有99.9%正确的话 每年就会有 4,453,000个处方是错误的。 或者更糟， 在美国， 每一天会有11位父母 抱错他们的新出生的宝宝。
04:16
（笑声）
04:19
这还只是按概率算呢，拜托。
04:21
（笑声）
04:22
事实上，美国政府一台价值 14亿美元的飞机坠毁了， 因为维修小组只做了99%的工作。 他们中有人忘了检查一个传感器。 事实上，已经有16个人身亡， 180个人受伤， 3400万辆车被从市场上召回， 只因为汽车安全气囊的制造商制造并销售了 一件他们自认为够好了的商品。 事实上，医疗事故 现在已经是美国造成死亡的 第三大罪魁祸首。 每年有25万人身亡， 只因为有一个自以为 把工作做得够好的人 搞砸了。 你们不相信吗？ 我完全可以理解为什么。 现在这个年代 我们已经很难相信任何事情了， 特别是当只有少于50%的 新闻评论家所说的话 是基于事实的。
05:10
（笑声）
05:12
所以我们总结出了这个： 尽我们所能做到最好是不够的。 那么我们应该如何改变呢？ 我们应该追求完美， 并且不能退而求其次。
05:25
我现在应该给你们一分钟时间思考， 因为我知道你曾经听过一些话， 它很有可能是一些像 “人无完人” 一类的话。 因此寻求完美不仅会伤你的自尊心， 还会让你看起来像个失败者。 但这有点讽刺。 如今我们都如此害怕 “失败”这个词， 但真相是，我们需要失败。 失败是大自然给我们的垫脚石，它引领我们到走向完美， 但在某种程度上， 我们因为太害怕失败 和太害怕“完美”这个概念 而直接忽略了它们，只因为当我们失败时自尊心会受伤。 但你们真的相信失败会毁了你吗？ 还是说这就是为什么我们有了很慢的网速， 吓人的医疗制度，和不安全的公路？ 你们真的让“完美” 成为了所有这些坏事的替罪羊吗？失败和不完美从根本上来看是一样的。 我们都知道我们周围 有很多不完美的事物。 没有任何事物或人是完美的。 但某种程度上， 因为太难或太痛苦了， 我们决定忽视 我们接受失败的自然本能 并降低我们对于失败的容忍度。 现在我们被迫放手不管 并且接受这个新的准则， 或者说，这个尽力就好的态度以及它造成的所有后果。
06:39
所以即使说了那么多， 人们还是会告诉我， “那些医护人员， 维修人员，和工程师， 他们已经尽力做到最好了，这难道还不够吗？“ 老实说，对我来说不够。 对于这些例子来说更是如此。 尝试达到完美是一件很有压力的事， 不是吗？ 并且，欧普拉曾经谈过它，大学里研究过它， 我相信连你高中班主任 都曾经警告过你， 压力对我们有害，不是吗？ 好吧， 也许是的。 但是认为追求完美的过程压力太大就像抱怨锻炼身体太累。 在这两个例子中，如果你想要成果， 你就要忍受过程的痛苦。 所以说实话，说追求完美的过程压力太大 就像一个偷懒的借口。
07:21
不过这也是最让人害怕的地方。 如今，医生，心理治疗师， 还有他们那个每年值上亿美元的 自给自足的行业， 都在宣扬着一种“反对完美”的理念。 在这种理念伪装下的，其实是一种“不去追求完美”的心理。 它会挽救并保护你的自尊。 可是，这是无效的。 因为那些自给自足的行业 都有着很高的累犯率，它们都把注意力集中在 让你接受自己是一个失败者 并且降低对事物的接受标准上， 而不是推动着你， 让你变得更加完美。
07:50
现在我们可以看到，这些医生， 心理治疗师，自给自足的权威们 都把注意力集中在症状而非疾病上。我们当今社会真正的疾病 在于我们不愿意去面对失败。 我们更愿意呆在“我们已经付出了努力” 这个舒适圈中， 而非把注意力集中在我们的成果上。 比方说俄亥俄州的Dublin Jerome高中 就把百分之三十的毕业生 都评为了”最优秀毕业生“。 拜托，别开玩笑了。 “最优秀毕业生”在美国是 绩点最高的学生啊，难道有72个学生并列第一吗？
08:20
（笑声）
08:21
但是，我们更加愿意 给予他们相同的荣誉， 而不是直接去面对失败， 无论是作为一个失败者还是发挥不佳者。 并且当无论成就如何，每个人都得到了奖励，都升了职， 或者都涨了工资时， 我们当中的完美主义者就开始纳闷， 我们要怎么做才能做得更好呢？ 我怎么样才能把事情做得比周围的人都要好呢？
08:39
现在我们可以看到， 如果我们继续推广这种理念， 也就是没有人会失败， 或没有人被告知他们将会失败， 那么就没有人能完全发挥他们的潜能。 失败是成功之本。 但轻易放任失败则不然。 米开朗琪罗说过， “对于我们所有人来说， 最危险的事不是 因目标太高而无法达到， 而是我们目标过低并达到了它。“ 失败应该是一种鼓舞人心的力量， 而不是一种选择放弃的无用借口。
09:08
所以我有一个想法， 为什么我们要把完美主义消极地定义为对失败的不容忍， 而不给它一个新的定义呢？ 为什么我们不把完美主义定义为一种 迎难而上，追求完美的态度？ 如此一来，我们就可以承认，在追求完美时失败其实是一件好事， 并且当我们不畏惧失败 去追求完美时， 想想我们能够做成的事吧。
09:33
想想NBA球星斯蒂芬·库里吧， 他连续投进了77个三分球。 想想看， 他能够准确地把那个 直径9英寸半的球 从差不多24英尺外投进那个离地面10英尺高的 直径18英寸的篮筐里， 差不多80次而不出差错。或者像航空航天巨头 洛克希德·马丁公司里的电脑程序员。 他们现在已经编写了一个程序， 它长达42万行，几乎没有错误代码， 控制着一个四百万英镑重 点燃的火箭的方方面面 并推动一架120吨重的航天飞机 进入轨道。 或者像密苏里州堪萨斯城 儿童医院里的研究人员， 他们现在正在研究一种 可以在短短的26小时内 完成人类基因组编码的仪器。 这种仪器可以更快地诊断 婴儿和新生儿的基因性遗传病，使医生们可以更早的开始治疗 并挽救婴儿的生命。 所以现在我们可以看到 我们追求完美时会有什么事发生。
10:35
也许我们应该学习那些专业运动员， 不知疲倦的程序员， 或者那些热衷于科学的研究人员。 这样我们就会不再畏惧失败， 我们也会不再生活在一个 “已经足够好了”的社会里。
10:48
谢谢。
10:49
（掌声）
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