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Learn From The Things That Go Wrong

by Yiying Lu

I’m best known for having designed the fail whale that appears when Twitter goes down. It turns out that I also, accidentally, have a lot to say about failure. 

Failure is important. As speakers and as people, we have to be willing to go try things that are hard. Over time, we’ll get comfortable with those things, and we’ll build skills. Speaking online is no exception! However, to get good at anything, we must be willing to fail. You can’t do hard things without failing.

Let me tell you about one of my failures. When I lived in Australia, a group of Shanghai professors came to visit the local universities. They needed someone to be a bilingual translator and I volunteered. They had five professors going to a class of 500 students, and none of the professors spoke any English. Far worse, none of them had ever been translated before, so they didn’t break their talks into small chunks. They’d say paragraphs at a time (they each had five to eight minutes to speak) and then look at me.

The first time this happened I froze. I felt damaged and overwhelmed--I literally cried. I didn’t translate a thing. And I remember the teachers were upset, but they and the coordinator both told me it was okay.

Afterwards, I was devastated and resentful. It was so bad that I thought I would never get over it. But my parents did something that helped me. They said, “Okay, now you are at rock bottom. There is nowhere to go but up. See what you can learn.”

My parents told me it was okay to fail. They gave me permission to fail and fail wonderfully. But they (and the teachers) made me go back to translate again.

The next day I woke up and did it again. Every day I got a little better. I was so happy to see the incremental improvements. I was so happy to see how much I had improved by the fifth university. But it was hard.

The Chinese written character for crisis is made up of the two words for danger and opportunity. If I hadn’t gone through that crisis of failure, I wouldn’t have been able to find the confidence from it that carried me through later crises. I wouldn’t have been able to understand how important failure is to learning new skills. 

Embrace failure. It can teach you so much. And you’ll look back, years later, and often it will be funny. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. You’ll also be able to use your failures to help other people. You’ll be able to share those failures and what you learned from them, as I am sharing now. Your failures will become part of your autobiography.

It’s okay to want big things, and to have drive. But the one thing I have learned from my life is that great work comes from resilience, and resilience comes from failure. Every crisis is an opportunity too.

Don’t be afraid to try, and fail. Embrace your failures. They will teach you and make you stronger.


Idea for Action: Think about one of your failures. What can it teach you? Write down three ideas. Consider turning these ideas into future talks.
 

About the Author: Yiying Lu is an award-winning artist, entrepreneur, educator, and bilingual speaker. She was named a “Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business”, Microsoft’s “Top 10 Emerging Leader in Innovation”, and a “Shorty Awards” winner in Design.

Connect with Yiying Lu through
her websiteLinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter.

--> Embrace Your Unique Perspective!

Join Yiying Lu alongside Paola Mariselli at our next #CouchConvo. They will share their experiences as bilingual speakers and how they've learned to embrace their unique perspectives. 

May 14th at 11am or 9pm EDT >> 

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