We believe all the best people are experiments. Here’s why.

By Amy Kean.

The philosopher Alain de Botton is responsible for my favourite quote. I live, breathe, sleep, joke and facilitate by this quote: 

“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”

But it’s not a completely unique perspective. Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman also said: “If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.” 

What they don’t mean is for all of us to make constant mistakes and do half-arsed jobs and act like twats. They’re not justifying the existence of fools. Rather, the message here is for human beings to always test ourselves, and see what happens. If you do that, chances are you’ll be embarrassed about who you used to be, because you’ll never stop getting better. 

I think this is beautiful. We are all experiments! 

What does that mean? It means having hypotheses about yourself. “If I do x, then maybe y will happen”. “If I take a different approach to z, then maybe I’ll enjoy it more”, and so on. It means really thinking about results and analysing how you performed and felt about any given situation or project. 

Too much training and education tells people what to do and how to act without asking first who those people are and what their lived experiences are. That doesn’t work. When we think of ourselves as experiments, perfectly content to be embarrassed about our past messes and failures…. Well… you blow up. But in a nice way, like Mentos and Coca-Cola. 

And this is the thinking Good Shout is founded upon. 

Good Shout New Habits: 

Think about an important part of your character and talent… is it your writing, your social content, your curiosity? Create a personal experiment around it.