• by Adam Singolda , January 13, 2012

In early 2011, I put some thoughts into writing about a concept I’ve realized in my young career, spending some years in the Israeli army and at Taboola. I called it the Economy of Good Enough. A few months later, I decided to write about it on Video Insider, where I also shared some points from a presentation I gave at MIT Sloan.

I discussed the beauty of failing, and why focusing on “playing it to the big win” is risky. Failing is OK in a fast-paced business environment, almost encouraged if you want to get better and increase your chances to win. I was then also fortunate to have Gigaom founder Om Malik write about my post.

Recently someone decided to tag me on Facebook with a link to a list of video segments on Vimeo about the fear Of failure  that took place in Swedem’s Berghs School of Communication. Fascinating. The first video I saw in that list was by who else but Milton Glaser himself, creator of “I Heart NY,” a slogan that most people know as a logo printed on a U.S.-made T-shirt.

During this video (which I encourage you to take the time to watch), Glaser speaks about whether people should stick to one thing they do well, or take risks, fail and try new things.

“You must embrace failure…. You must find out what you’re capable of doing, and what you’re not capable of doing,” he says. “That is the only way to deal with the issue of success and failure because otherwise you simply would never subject yourself to the possibility that you’re not as good as you want to be, hope to be, or as others think you are.”

Some people summarized 2011 in other posts. I want to begin 2012. Happy New Year, everybody, and I wish us all many moments of trying new and different things. Otherwise, we might not know what we’re good at.

Mr. Milton Glaser, thank you.