J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, recently delivered her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
I was told about this speech by one of my friends on the members-only SiteSell forums for Site Build It! subscribers. Thanks, Colin.
If I hadn’t heard about her speech there, I might have missed it and that would have been a real shame.
In reading her speech, I was surprised by how little she referred to Harry Potter, even though writing her novels took her to dizzying heights of success.
Instead, she talks about the liberation of total failure and the importance of imagining new futures and different pasts.
In talking about failure, part of what she emphasized was:
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.
I have experienced this level of failure a couple of times in my life. It isn’t fun, but it can be educational and liberating. Depending upon how you react to it, these experiences can put steel in your resolve and be a foundation upon which you can build your future success.
It reminds me of the lines Kris Kristofferson wrote in “Bobby McGee” when he said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Once you’ve lost everything - materially, that is - you aren’t encumbered by the things you want to believe about yourself, because many of them fall away as you lose houses, cars, credit ratings, and other things we associate with material affluence.
Other parts of the experience can be harder, or they can be liberating. For example, to one person, losing a spouse can be something that will hurt for decades. To another, it can be a difficult, but liberating, experience that will make it easier to build a better life, move in a different direction, and grow more as a person.
This level of failure is truly difficult and poverty is not something I would wish on anyone.
However, it can be life-changing, if you take the steps to do what you truly want to do. Like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, you can rise to new levels of success, understanding, and personal fulfillment that you would never have achieved, otherwise.
Is it easy?
No.
Can you do it?
Yes.
As she progressed with her speech, Ms. Rowling says this about imagination:
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
Here is where the speech took a turn that really surprised me.
I was sure she was going to emphasize the imagination that enabled her to write all the Harry Potter
stories, but she went in a very different direction.
Instead, she talked about her earliest exeriences when working with Amnesty International and all the suffering that had been experienced by people who had been tortured and killed and the uncertainty, pain, and worry experienced by their family and friends.
I have to tell you, this is totally outside my own experiences, but after reading what she wrote, I have found more empathy for the people who have experienced these horrors.
Compared to them, even in my deepest failures and during the darkest days of my life, I have had it easy and safe.
Ms. Rowling continued and said:
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
Imagination is a powerful thing.
It is the basis for all future inventions.
By imagining, we can achieve things undreamed of by others.
Napoleon Hill said, in Think and Grow Rich:
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
This is the power that we have to create new worlds and change the horrors we have inherited from those who preceded us.
We can write novels that inspire millions to read more.
We can develop better products and services to solve problems and offer opportunities to people around the world.
Or, when used negatively, we can imagine worse things that we can do to make the lives of our fellow earthlings even more miserable.
The choice is up to us.
The choice is up to you.
Or, if you prefer, you can choose not to use your power of imagination. You can continue to lead the life you’re living and not imagine the great future you can live if you pursue your dreams and follow your passions.
Again, the choice is yours.
Ms. Rowling closes her speech by talking about her friends. These are the people that offer support and help in times of need and share joy in times of abundance.
Even when I lost everything, I still had my friends and family.
True friends can be even more important than your family, because you may have closer bonds and more in common with them.
You don’t need a lot of friends, but I hope you have a few really close friends with whom you share your life. These friends are treasures worth far more than the rarest metals or the prettiest sparkly rocks.
Share your life with your friends and family. Help each other live to your fullest potential.
Thank you, Ms. Rowling, for an outstanding speech and I’m happy I was able to read it. (If you have broadband, you can watch the video.)
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
Now, it’s up to you.
You have the power to change the world.
Act on your dream!
JD
John Dilbeck 
