Link to JK Rowling's Talk: The fringe benefits of failure
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Author JK Rowling gave a speech about the fringe benefits of failure at the 2008 Harvard Commencement. Rowling’s speech is informative and entertaining (especially for Harry Potter fans). She states several key ideas and thoughts for students to take away from her speech, while also providing comic relief that keeps them entertained.
Rowling begins her speech by stating that she had lost several pounds due to her anxiety over giving this speech, but jokes it was a “win-win” situation. She then explains that she must move forward by taking a deep breath, and give her speech the best she can. Rowling also makes jokes such as “This is the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion!” and “I’m fortunate to have friends who didn’t sue me for naming death eaters after them”. These jokes entertain viewers that understand the Harry Potter references, but I did wonder if it made other viewers feel left out. While it is always helpful to entertain and engage your audience, speakers must also be careful to not isolate viewers who do not understand the references or jokes. Viewers who are isolated may become detached and lose interest.
Rowling had wonderful advice for graduating students such as how to get through a nerve-racking speech, how to grow from failure, and why to value imagination. Rowling describes her personal experience with failure, and how it affected her. Rowling also explains how imagination can helps us all; mainly, it can help us to understand situations we have not experienced ourselves, but others have; it makes us more empathetic and understanding, which ultimately encourages us to help others. She reminds all students that imagination can be a useful skill throughout life, and not just in childhood.
How have you grown from your failures? Do you have any advice regarding failure or imagination that you would like to share with others?
In my experience, one of the reasons failure is so important is that it builds resilience, and resilience is arguably more important than any other trait. You have to learn to be self-reliant, to get back up and do something better, to not define yourself by external recognition or opinions-- to roll with punches. There's a great TED Talk on resilience somewhere. :)
ReplyDeleteThat would be a great topic for one of my blog posts! I will search for it and hopefully cover it in the upcoming weeks. Stay posted!
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