Of course, if you try something, and you fail, then everyone is going to notice, everyone is going to ridicule you, and nobody will forget it as long as you live.

But that's not really true.

There are some spectacular failures that get a lot of press, like New Coke. But for the overwhelming majority of things, failure is an event that goes unnoticed, and is quickly forgotten.

The day Apple announced the iPad, it was derided endlessly by nerds, and the speculation was that it would be a miserable failure. Let's imagine they had been right...Apple would have moved on, and the name "iPad" would be all but forgotten.

Remember when companies tried to create tablet PCs back in the 1990's and they failed to make them take off? Right, exactly...almost no one remembers that.

Even getting away from lofty examples using Apple, it took me years--years--to learn that if you opened your mouth in a social situation and nobody responds to what you say, it's not the end of the work. When someone else says something, and no one says anything, it's not a big deal. The comment just passes, unnoticed. It just feels different when it us.

People won't laugh at you for trying. They'll do what they usually do: ignore you. You should take comfort in that, because it's actually liberating. When no one's looking, you can take a lot of risks.

The hard part is figuring what kinds of risks you're going to spend your time taking.