Preparing Yourself for a Job at Google X

I recently heard a piece on the radio about Google X Labs, the facility run by Google that the company says is "dedicated to making major technological advancements." You know - Google Glass and self-driving cars. Google encourages X Lab employees to come up with "moonshots" - outrageous ideas that may have only the remotest chance of every coming to fruition. Evidently nothing is too crazy to be considered. Only the smallest portion of the ideas people come up will ever come close to being designed or manufactured, so the failure rate is exceedingly high. Do you get that? They listen to and discard hundreds of ideas, looking for one or two to pursue. Would you be able to stomach that as an innovator? Constantly having your ideas rejected? 

Google knows that in order to find the truly great ideas they might have to let go of some that are just okay, and sometimes the projects they do green light might seem crazy to the rest of the world. Working for them might mean that you get the chance to work on some of the most world's greatest inventions - but it also means that a lot of these outrageous ideas will crash and burn, or that you will have to be prepared to fail and try again, and fail and try again, over and over. Do you have the heart for that?

Bottom line, to do anything great you have to be prepared to flop. Like Edison, who discovered hundreds of ways not to make a light bulb before creating one that worked, you have to be able stomach defeat in order to be victorious. 

So when you're struggling, remember - you're preparing for the future. You could be Google X's next great employee!