You need a non-zero failure rate. And here is an experience of mine to prove that.
In the second year of my MBA, as I was selecting my courses, I was faced with two options:
Option A: Take a quant course that I could easily ace.
Option B: Take up a course on negotiations, for which Wharton was quite famous.
If I took a quant course, a distinction grade was nearly guaranteed. But with negotiations, there was no telling how well I would do.
Since I was doing quite well grades-wise, I was sorely tempted to avoid sullying my grade sheet with an imperfect grade.
But thankfully I resisted. Had I not taken the negotiations course, I would have missed out on a wonderful experience.
When we seek certainty of success, we are tempted to only do what we can easily achieve. But what good would that do? If Roger Federer played tennis with me, he would crush me without even trying – but what would he get out of it?
Do things that have some risk of failure. Admittedly, you don’t have to do this every day. Nor do you have to take risks that give you a panic attack.
If you are acing everything you do, here is the bad news: You are capable of more. And you probably will never find that out.
– Rajan