Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

The quotes below are from Robert Genn's Twice-Weekly newsletter.  I found them especially appropriate since that is exactly what I have been doing this past week or so.  The older lady at the left is one of my "small bets."  I only spent a few hours on her - decided I had learned all I could learn from it and moved on.  

"In Peter Sims' book, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, we see the value of making lots of small failures as a way to get to large successes. While Peter's book is mainly aimed at entrepreneurs, it's also of real value to us regular creative types. These days, cutting-edge gurus are passing the word around: "Fail often in order to succeed sooner."

When students are encouraged to do volumes of small items they become accepting-- even proud--of their failures and are more readily able to move on to ideas that work better for them. Simply put and perhaps surprisingly, less commitment widens opportunity. In a hundred small bets, a dozen or so often ring the bells. With this shotgun effect, even beginners are seen to produce gems. As the lady said, "It's better to have a small diamond than a large piece of glass."

PS: "Life is an experiment where failure teaches as much as success." (Peter Sims)"