Fail Harder... Dan Wieden - 'The secret of my success is failure and uncertainty'

What makes you a success? Is it genes, luck, hard work? Or, is it your ability to keep trying, and failing, trying, and failing...

I read a pretty good interview with Dan Wieden - He's the founder of Wieden & Kennedy, one of the world's most cutting- edge advertising agencies. They created the tag, Just Do It, for Nike. here are a couple good quotes from the article:

Step into the London offices of Wieden & Kennedy, one of the world's most cutting- edge advertising agencies, and the first thing you see is a mannequin in a pinstriped suit and buffed shoes, his head replaced with a kitchen blender and the words "Walk In Stupid Every Morning" inscribed in pink on his briefcase. ..."Blender Man" embodies the chaotic creative spirit of the agency that Dan Wieden founded with David Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, in 1982, but the motto is just one of many slogans found in this strangest of workplaces. "Fail harder" is another, "Welcome to Optimism" is another.

What kind of permission do we give to the people that we serve? Do we allow our people to dream big and fail hard? Are we trying to make robots or trying to see God come alive in people? Here's a great quote that really makes you think about relevance and being innovative...

W&K, he says, still thrives on a culture "built around a friendly relationship with chaos", a concept represented by Blender Man. "I think it's important that if you're going to be innovative, that there's not a process for everything. Sometimes it seems that if you're never lost you're never going to wind up any place new. It's only if you're willing to be completely f***ed-up that you're going to do anything important,"