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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
— "Slammin’" Sam Beckett

This sounds all Zen and profound, but it really depends on how you define success.

Here is an actual situation that happend to us:

Some time back, we were designing some things for a client in a design area that was pretty much totally virgin territory for everyone involved. It was exciting for this reason.

The client and ourselves had a handful of meetings, after which we came up with some proposals, pitched them, and they were accepted. A plan of action was outlined and agreed upon. Talk around the table indicated that since we were in new territory, the best course was to just start pushing through the first couple of passes, and then re-evaluate.

About halfway through the project, Nick and I were up very late drinking bourbon, (attentive readers will notice this is somewhat of a motif) and we had the vaunted "Eureka!" moment. All of a sudden, the project made sense, and we had an actual, real solution right there in our hands.

First, the good news: It was still a real solution the next morning. We spent that day creating a presentation detailing the ways that our new proposal addressed all the concerns that the client had voiced, and flat-out solved the problem from a conceptual standpoint. We pitched it that same afternoon.

Now the bad news: The client felt it was best to continue building the original idea.

This was the beginning of the end of our engagement. Among many other reasons, our visions for the project never re-aligned. We just couldn’t abide building a better band-aid now that we could see the final solution.

Before long, we went our separate ways. Some of my behavior in this situation is one of the few parts of my business life that I regret. From a professional standpoint, I definitely could have handled it better, and I wish I did.

That said, I don’t regret the end of the relationship at all - we had massive culture clash and there were all sorts of other truly unpleasant shenanigans at the client site that made the relationship toxic, not even to mention that they didn’t get it. What hacks me off, though, is that this really nice solution is completely tabled.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong. I tried to learn a lesson from what I see as a fairly big wasted opportunity.

So, in the end, what did I learn from having to throw away this really elegant and nice solution and a swell payday?

I am going to break these eggs.

You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Which is to say, for the most part, I’d do it over again today if I had to. I’d rather have a few big successes and a few big failures than a long string of mediocre projects. Period.

And if that sounds egregious to you, wait until Wednesday, when I will finish this up.