In everything we build, do or buy there is a failure rate. Doctors talk about failure rates when consulting with patients, manufacturers talk about failure rates when building products and teachers talk about failure rates when reviewing tests and quizzes.

Failure rates are something that is part of life and we just hope that the failure rate of the product we are dealing with is small enough that it either doesn’t make a difference or that we are not the one effected by it.

I learned that when it came to building the space shuttles everything was engineered to a 999 failure rate which means only 1 in a thousand parts will go wrong. That sounds like an impressive number until we stop to thing that there were over 2,000,000 parts that went into each space craft. 2,000,000 parts that each needed to be build and installed with the the finesse of a fine Swiss watch. That 1 in 1000 means that 2000 parts could still fail, and sadly in a few instances of our exploration of the universe things did fail.

Nothing can ever be perfect and nothing is ever a 100% guarantee, but if we build and work towards a failure rate instead of a success rate we are setting our selves up to fail. So I challenge you today to go into the day not thinking about the failure rate, but working to improve your success rate. If you are already operating at a 999 success rate strive for a 9999 success rate. You will find that it is difficult, but ultimately rewarding.

Today’s photo is a Door off a landing capsule that illustrates how many parts go into a space craft.

Have a great day everyone.