failure vs. mediocrity

I first became familiar with Dan Pink while watching one of his TED presentations online.

He writes a great blog post about the difference between failure and mediocrity.  Here it is:

Most people are more frightened of failure than of mediocrity. It should be the reverse.

Failure is a broken leg — painful, but easily fixed. Mediocrity is a creeping disease — invisible and insidious — that disables so completely that there’s often no recovery.