How to get into Second Life without really trying

Selby Evans is Thinkerer Melville in Second Life

A collaboration of the Engineer and the Un families.

If anything is worth doing, it’s worth screwing up           

Oh, sure.  The Shudoffs would say it’s worth doing well.  That’s their job.  They sit around in your head and tell you what you should do.  Or, better yet, what you should have done.  They want you to wait till you are sure you can to it.  And if that waiting takes too long, the Shudoffs will complain that you should have started sooner.

But nobody wants to screw up.   And nobody does screw up.  It takes a person to name what happened.  A person can call it a screw up.  Or give it another name.

Engineer:  Any plan that doesn't work is a trial run.

Thomas Edison:  I have not failed. 
I've just found 1,000 ways that won't work.

A screw-up by any other name is still a screw-up.   No.  It is a result you didn’t expect.  Sometimes it is a comedy, as the Marx Brothers would tell you.  Sometimes it is a discovery, as Alexander Fleming would have told you.  Sometimes it is a learning experience, as NASA tells you every once in a while.  Sometimes it is a disaster.  Sometimes it is a trial run.  Sometimes it is a detour sign.  Sometimes it is an opportunity. 

These are all names people use to tell themselves how to react to an unexpected result.  Everybody gets unexpected results..  Sometimes people choose names that make things worse.  Sometimes people choose names that will help them get better use out of the unexpected results. 

Even when you can’t choose what happens,
you can choose the name you give it.

If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything.

The road to success is paved with mistakes.

Glossary. Value terms

If you don’t screw-up, you won’t have to name it.  If you don’t want to screw-up, you don’t want to take risks.  If you don’t take risks, you don’t take opportunities.  What name would you use for missing opportunities? 

The saddest words of tongue or pen
Are only these: it might have been.

How do people get used to dealing with screw-ups?  It takes practice.  You see people with cool hands.  They screw up like an expert.  Smooth.  Casual.  Like they’ve been doing it for years.  They have. 

The only public part of the success story is the last act.

Bounce-Back

The Bounce-Back Routine

Is there anything you can do about screw-ups besides get used to them?  Sure.  You can plan for them.  Then they don’t surprise you.  You can build them into your schedule.  Work them into your budget.  Have a plan B.  Use them as examples in Experience 101.

Experience 101?  Did you ever take that course?
Could you teach it?

The key that works will always be the last one you try.

Tools: How to plan for effective screw-ups