I was lectured by a professional skier. She kept telling me to put my weight in front of the bindings. That’s counter intuitive. When you are going down, and possibly about to fall, you instinctively fall back, trying to weigh yourself so that you won’t fall. Our nature wants to fall back.
“You should fall forward. Even if you are gonna fall, you learn something by falling forward.” She said, “Always fall forward.”
Fall Forward
In Denzel Washington’s UPenn commencement speech, he also talked about ‘fall forward’:
“I’m sure people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on… make sure you have something fall back on. But I’ve never understood that concept - to have something to fall back on. If I’m going to fall I won’t fall back on anything except my face. I want to fall forward… figure at least in this way I’ll see what I’m going to hit.”
He also said, “To get something you never had, you need to do something you never did.”
He also said, “If you don’t fail, you are not even trying.”
Fall Forward.
To be honest, the first time I heard Denzel, I just thought ‘fall forward’ was a deliberate act, a psychological tortue to yourself that forced you to hold on to what you haven’t achieved. This time, after the skiing, I realized, ‘fall forward’, actually makes a lot of sense!
Essentially there are two ways to fail: a way that retracts to where you were, and a way that throws to somewhere you don’t even know. Should I go ahead and try this mission-impossible project, or should I say no early on to minimize loss? Should I learn the new skills to solve that problem, or should I stay safe and rely on the old solutions? Should I walk up and talk to him/her no matter how awkward it feels, or should I just sit back, be quiet and let time pass by?
Fall Forward.
This is my new year’s solution. Even if I am gonna fail, I want to fall forward – I want to fail in a way that throws me to somewhere unknown, no matter how awkward it feels.