Benefits Of Failure, Importance Of Imagination

Novelist J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling "Harry Potter" series, gave this entertaining and powerful commencement address at Harvard University a few days ago.





Not a fan of the fantasy genre myself (prefer spacey stuff), but Rowling's speech is a measured retrospective of personal setbacks and triumphs that is a refreshing departure from the usual "reach for the skies tiger!" kind of crap that passes as motivational talks nowadays.

My favourite part is:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Nice.

Pipette tip to BackStage.

Would you like to know more?
- Complete transcript and video (Harvard Magazine)