The opportunity to be wrong
History is filled with examples of people who made errors in judgment.
The executives at Decca that turned down the Beatles, the CEO at Digital who said that no one would ever need to have a computer in their home, and the reviewers that didn’t like the movie 2001.
And of course, the creators that are wrong so often. The entrepreneur who raises a bunch of money and fails, or the musician who follows up a hit with a string of duds.
But these failures are all a sign that someone had been given the privilege to be wrong in the first place.
It’s tempting to find a sinecure where someone tells you what to do all day–after all, then you’re off the hook and you can’t be wrong, only the boss can.
But it’s far more thrilling and useful and fulfilling to be the one who might mess up.