This is NOT a story about gambling.

By Steve Moran

I recently came across this Ray Bradbury quote:

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

I believe this to be true . . . of course, only under the assumption that you are actually taking the time to be self-critical about your writing style and your content.   

Right now, as a blogger and thought leader in the senior living industry, I produce 150-250 articles per year. I have not actually done the math, but here is about what it looks like:

  • 10-20 of those articles never saw the light of day. Some were just not very good, while others were well written — but after reflecting on what I had written — I didn’t think they would be helpful.

  • 10-20 of them were flops — meaning they had below average readership. That might mean it had the wrong headline, the wrong topic, or was poorly written.

  • 10 or so were barn burners. They had huge reads and generated lots of conversation. They were shared and re-shared.

  • The balance was good, even really good, but not spectacular.

Reality

The reality is that no one hits it out of the park every time — or even most of the time. But the converse is also true, that anything we do on a regular basis is more good than bad. Each day, week, or month you have ideas about how to do your job better. Some of those ideas are great ideas and others are duds. Some are easy to do and some are not so easy.

You know you can’t do all of them.

Do Enough Things

The first time I met my friend Kimberly Green, the CEO of The Dikanos Group, she said they were in the business of failing. It is a great approach! Because if you try enough stuff, some things are going to be a total flop, others will be so-so, some will work pretty well and a few things . . . the gems . . . will produce spectacular results.

Those spectacular results will overshadow all of the so-so and the flops.

The Right Culture and The Right Attitude

It takes just two things. The first is having the willingness to try new things, to experiment. The second is to have a culture that embraces change and failure. This is really all about having a culture where everyone believes they can get better, do better, be better.

Will you try 52 or 12 new ideas this year?