What was your biggest flop?
In her keynote at the opening general session at ASAE's 2011 Annual Meeting & Expo, Tina Brown said she thinks everyone should make one big mistake in his or her career.
The editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, Brown said hers was Talk magazine, which lasted just two years and never found much success before falling victim to the recession immediately after 9/11. None the less, Brown said she made connections during those two years that led to her later career endeavors.
What's the biggest mistake you've made in your career?
How did it affect you? What did you learn from it? And do you agree with Brown that everyone should make at least one big mistake? Brown's mistake was a job itself; I'm not sure, though, that everyone ought to take at least one job that doesn't work out. But big mistakes can happen in any context, and if you work long enough, they're bound to happen.
Personally, I'm early in my career, and while I've made some mistakes, I don't think I've made any mistakes yet at the level of Brown's. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but it's comforting to know that taking a risk that flops as big as Talk did doesn't have to be a career killer. Clearly, for Brown, it was anything but.
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