The Groove Issue 72 - Why There's Always a Win In a Failure
WHY THERE’S ALWAYS A WIN IN A FAILURE
Doing something new and creating something of value requires experimentation. If you want to do something unique, you must be at peace with the idea that you don’t know the outcome and you may fail.
There is no wisdom and no success without failure. Handling failure well is something that good artists and entrepreneurs know how to do. To succeed in new and creative fields, you must become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Today, I’m giving you a tight excerpt of my upcoming book “How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold” (HarperCollins).
I have condensed a full chapter into a handful of paragraphs below.
At the end of every chapter, there is an Alchemy Lab section so you can take actionable steps from what you’ve learned in that chapter and adapt them to your life. I have also condensed one here for you.
Those Who Create Also Fail
Marcel Duchamp flanked by CBS News reporter Charles Collingwood and a crew member of “Eyewitness” in 1963 in New York. They were replicating the setting of the Armory Show in 1913. After being mocked and ridiculed hundreds of times, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, became one of the most important paintings in modern art history, to the extent that it was celebrated in national TV for the 50th anniversary of its American debut.
The French artist Marcel Duchamp, considered the father of conceptual art, was always experimenting in search of something radical and new. In 1912, he painted a half-futurist, half-cubist naked figure walking down a staircase.
The result was completely novel. He called his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, and submitted it to the Salon des Indépendants. The art shown at this annual exhibition in Paris was widely discussed.
The committee reluctantly accepted Nude 2. The cubists labeled it too futuristic and found the title disturbing. It had “too much of a literary title,” they said; also, one doesn’t paint a nude descending a staircase; that’s ridiculous, a nude reclines . . .
Duchamp wouldn’t change the title and withdrew the painting from the Salon. He had sufficient confidence to know that he had done something completely different. If viewers struggled to relate to the piece and its radical idea of the human figure, so be it.
The satirical cartoon published by the Evening Sun in March 1913 after a dealer had exhibited Nude 2 at The Armory Show in New York.
An American art dealer called Walter Patch saw Nude 2 and was so impressed that he had the canvas shipped to New York to exhibit it at the Armory Show. That show was then the most important exhibition of contemporary art in America. In February of 1913, Nude 2 made its debut in New York. The more open-minded Americans didn’t show much love to it either.
The New York Times labeled it “an explosion in a shingle factory.” It became the punch line of a cartoon published in The Evening Sun. The satire contained hundreds of people on top of one another. The caption at the top read, “Seeing New York with a Cubist”; the caption below, “The Rude Descending the Staircase (Rush Hour at the Subway).” American Art News offered a $10 prize to anyone who could find the nude.
However, at the end of the Armory Show, the piece sold to a San Francisco lawyer and art dealer for its asking price of $324 (around $10,000 today).
After being relentlessly criticized and satirized, Nude 2, became a symbol of the new and one of the most important works of modern art. The piece now lives in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Nude 2, and the criticism it generated in America, became a symbol of the new. Other artists started thinking about what it would be like to create art in the modern era.
Duchamp, far from defeated by the critics, delighted in all the attention his work received. He moved to New York City in 1915, where he quickly realized how important Nude 2 was in paving the way for his arrival. After it was sold a couple of times, the piece found its way into the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
How Barbara Corcoran Stepped into The Future Thanks to a Failure
Barbara Corcoran founded her first real estate firm in New York in 1973. For almost twenty years, she worked relentlessly to build her name and that of her company. In 1992, for the first time in many years, she turned a profit—exactly $71,000 (about $130,000 today).
She decided to reinvest it in her business, and she had a creative idea about what to do with it. She hired a photographer to videotape all seventy-three of the Corcoran Group’s listings. She even hired a professional makeup artist so the agents would look flawless. Then, for a refundable deposit of $20, clients could take the tapes home and see the listings in comfort—a perfect solution for the busy New Yorker.
The result was quite different from her expectations. After spending her $71,000 profit throughout 1993 on those videos, not a single person took one. Brokers from other real estate agencies didn’t want to show their clients another salesperson’s face and contact information. Internally, the Corcoran Group’s agents feared the same.
Her big idea flopped. She had wasted her hard-earned profit.
A few weeks later, talking with her husband and a friend, Corcoran discovered the internet, which was just coming into general use. A lightbulb went off. What if she could put those videos on the internet? They would need to get a website. By January of 1994, she had a domain name, built a website, and the photographer reverted the videos to photographs.
Within a month, four clients found new homes browsing the Corcoran Group’s properties listed online. A failure turned into a victory and launched Corcoran’s business into the future. Corcoran’s innovative marketing techniques paid off. In 2001, she sold her business to NRT LLC for $66 million.
Alchemy Lab
• Evaluate the events you deem failures by asking yourself these questions:
1. Who told me this was a failure? Who evaluated the merits of this project and called it a failure? Is it a client? The marketplace? A teammate? Me? Look for comparisons and similar precedents that prove or disprove your “failure.” Sometimes all it takes are a few tweaks to turn something from a flop to a hit.
2. Were you able to connect emotionally with your target audience or your customers explaining in depth the merits of your product or service?
3. Do you feel a sense of ownership of your own idea? Or has it been altered so many times that it isn’t your original idea anymore?
4. What in the past did you do to push an idea that met with resistance? How did you refine it so that it became a success?
Use the answers as an anchor to hold you strong when you feel like you want to give up. Let them propel and push you forward to continue toward your goal.
Thank you again for the incredible response to my book!
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Preorders are really important because they signal to all the retailers that this book is doing well so it encourages to carry them in bookstores and other outlets. It also helps HarperCollins estimating printing qualities and avoid supply-chain delays.
If you have a book club, or you want to gift it to your friends or employees, Porchlight has the best prices available for bulk orders. Check them out here.
HarperCollins also started receiving reviews through NetGalley (a service for bookstore owners, librarians, professors and book junkies who want to read a PDF of the book). Here are four of my faves:
Loved being a guest of Katie Chonacas’ podcast “She's All Over The Place”. We talked about NFTs, my book, the state of the world and why we need creativity more than ever. Listen here.
I also loved this profile that Simon Owens wrote about how I built my business.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
There are no affiliate links in this email. Everything that I recommend is done freely.
THE CURATED GROOVE
A selection of interesting articles in business, art and creativity along with some other things worth mentioning:
A Time Of Invention And Reinvention: How Entrepreneurs Can Tap Into Creativity.
Three ways marketers can unlock their inner creativity.
5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Radically Transforming Creativity in Business.
Want To Innovate In 2022? Invest In These Three Places.
What Should Be Considered a Crime in the Metaverse?