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Failure, Solved — Transcript

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0:00You know, Drew, usually we do some sort
0:01of cold open to these episodes, but I
0:05failed to think of one. [laughter] This
0:07is
0:08>> We're getting kind of a trend.
0:10>> These like little meta cold open.
0:11>> Yeah. So, we have You failed already.
0:14I'm just before we've even started.
0:15>> I'm just trying to be clever.
0:16>> We can't commit to a studio space. We
0:20had commitment last week or last month.
0:21>> Unfortunately, we're lucky that we have
0:23such a great show.
0:24>> Well, we remember all the bad luck we
0:25had during that show, too.
0:26>> Oh, yeah. That's true.
0:27>> Good luck, too. I guess some good luck.
0:29>> The change episode. My god.
0:31>> Did you change?
0:32>> Well, that's
0:33>> I have not changed.
0:34>> Well, [laughter] I'm definitely the
0:36same.
0:37>> I I mean, we can get into that, but
0:39yeah, [laughter]
0:41>> for another podcast.
0:42>> I'm I'm a little bit afraid of this one
0:43then. If it's failure, we're talking
0:45about failure today.
0:46>> Yes.
0:46>> Okay. What's going to happen?
0:48>> I'm pretty sure whatever happens, it's
0:51not going to be my fault and I'm going
0:52to learn nothing from it.
0:54>> You better [laughter] listen to this
0:55episode then. That's Okay.
0:58>> Should I?
0:59>> You probably should. You probably
1:00should.
1:01>> That's actually what most people do is
1:03they they learn nothing.
1:04>> That's right. Let's learn something.
1:05>> Okay.
1:06>> Yeah.
1:06>> Let's try to learn something. Without
1:08further ado, I'm going to read this
1:09intro that you put together and hope it
1:11doesn't fail spectacularly.
1:18You know the quotes. You could recite
1:20them in your sleep. Edison and his
1:2210,000 light bulbs. Michael Jordan cut
1:25from his high school team. Fail forward,
1:28fail fast. What doesn't kill you makes
1:30you stronger. You've probably reposted
1:33one of these at some point on your
1:35Instagram. That's a little too close to
1:37home, Drew. Um, you may even have one on
1:40a coffee mug. That I don't have. You
1:43tell your friends that failure is your
1:44best teacher. You tell your kids that
1:46mistakes are how we learn. You believe
1:48it. You would swear on it. So, here's
1:51the question. The last time you actually
1:53failed, really failed at something, take
1:56a moment, think about it, something that
1:58you cared about, you failed in front of
2:01people whose opinion mattered to you.
2:03What did you actually do in that
2:05situation? If you're being honest,
2:07because if you are being honest, you
2:09probably didn't immediately extract the
2:12lesson. You didn't find the silver
2:13lining. You probably minimized it in the
2:16retelling. You built a version of the
2:18story for yourself where the market
2:19shifted or the timing was off or the
2:22other person screwed up and dropped the
2:23ball. You probably went a little quiet
2:26in the group chat. You checked days
2:29later whether anyone was still thinking
2:31about it. And somewhere, without ever
2:34really realizing it or announcing it to
2:37yourself, you made the next bet a little
2:39bit smaller. As a result, you resized
2:42your ambition so that that particular
2:44flavor of pain would never find you
2:46again. And at some point, at some
2:48ungodly hour of the night, you probably
2:51replayed it. The failure, I mean, not
2:53the lesson. On a loop, your body
2:55reacting like something was actually
2:57wrong. Obsessing over an email, a failed
3:00pitch, a faulty launch, a sentence you
3:03said three years ago that nobody else
3:05remembers. That gap between everything
3:08you believe about failure and everything
3:10you actually do when it shows up, that's
3:13not hypocrisy. It's not weakness. It's
3:16not an error. It is actually just a very
3:19human mechanism. And nobody has actually
3:22honestly explained it to you. Because
3:24here's the spicy take that Drew and I
3:27have learned from researching this
3:29episode. The entire modern conversation
3:32around failure is cope. The old culture
3:35that shames failure, well, it was always
3:38lying to you. It doesn't really matter
3:40that much. But the new culture that
3:42worships failure, it's running the exact
3:45same lie in reverse. And for once, we
3:48don't have to argue about this
3:49philosophically. We can just check
3:52because as always, the solve podcast
3:55brings the receipts because over the
3:56last two decades, that failure worship
3:59went fully mainstream. The conferences,
4:01the mantras, the keynotes, the measured
4:05share of people who were too afraid to
4:07fail to even try something rose by
4:09almost 50%. Perfectionism tracked across
4:12three decades and the exact countries
4:14preaching embracing failure the loudest
4:16hit the highest levels ever recorded.
4:19And in the lab, researchers can now
4:21watch in real time the human mind
4:23refusing to learn from its own mistakes.
4:26The single most repeated piece of advice
4:28in self-help, grow from your failures,
4:30turns out to be incredibly difficult for
4:32us to do. So, today we are going to
4:34break down all of the reasons why we
4:37both worship and shame our failures,
4:40both in ourselves and in other people.
4:42We're going to talk about how to
4:43actually learn from our failures. And
4:45it's it's really not as simple as you
4:47think. And along the way, we're also
4:50going to tell you a story about a
4:51conference founded to celebrate failure
4:53that, spoiler alert, ended up failing.
4:57We're going to talk about the two
4:58psychologists who drafted the most
5:00important theory of loss from a jeep in
5:02an active war zone while their own
5:05country's inability to admit failure got
5:07thousands of people killed around them.
5:08We're going to talk about the
5:09evolutionary reason a rejected email can
5:12produce the same physiological response
5:14as a threat to your life. We'll discuss
5:17a monk so tormented by his failures that
5:19he confessed them for 6 hours a day
5:22until his confessors had to start
5:24avoiding him and whose eventual
5:26breakdown accidentally split Western
5:28civilization in two. We'll discuss one
5:30of the greatest athletes who ever lived
5:32who stood at the very top of his sport
5:34and secretly hated it and spoke the
5:37truest sentence ever uttered about
5:38failure. And his escape is actually how
5:41this episode ends and is completely
5:43mind-blowing. We'll discuss why the best
5:45golfers on earth have a deeply ingrained
5:48bias that costs them serious money and
5:50why even when explained to them they
5:52cannot stop it. We'll talk about the
5:54difference between quitting and failing
5:56and the five question test that tells
5:58you whether you're quitting wisely or
6:00just [ __ ] scared. We'll talk about
6:02why what doesn't kill you makes you
6:04stronger is true only the way a barbell
6:06makes you stronger, which is to say it
6:08doesn't something else does. We're going
6:11to talk about all this and much, much
6:13more because in this episode, we're
6:15going to argue that every piece of
6:16advice you've ever received about
6:17failure has been aimed at the wrong
6:19target. Avoiding it, bouncing back from
6:22it, even embracing it, all of it assumes
6:24that failure is an event outside of
6:27yourself, out there in the world. But it
6:29isn't. What we're going to discover is
6:31that it is a byproduct of your own
6:33arbitrary standards and values. The
6:36truth is, you will never avoid failure.
6:39You're only going to choose how you
6:41define it. And it turns out that there
6:43are better and worse ways to define it.
6:45And this episode is ultimately about
6:47that learning to choose. My name is Mark
6:50Manson. I'm the three-time number one
6:51New York Times bestselling author. And
6:53this is Drew Bernie, my co-host,
6:54producer, lead researcher, and the man
6:56who ran a premortem failure analysis on
6:59this very podcast episode and concluded
7:01that I was its top risk. And this is
7:04solved. the most comprehensive podcast
7:07in the world where every episode we aim
7:09to solve one major life problem so you
7:12never have to deal with it again. That
7:14was a good one.
7:15>> That was a good one.
7:16>> You did not fail that. [laughter]
7:20>> But before we jump into it, be sure to
7:23rate, review, or subscribe to the show.
7:25It is the best thing you can do to
7:26support us. We put a lot of work into
7:29these episodes if you haven't noticed.
7:31So, please show your support for the
7:32show. Without further ado,
7:38our story starts in October of 2009 in
7:41San Francisco.
7:43There about 400 entrepreneurs, software
7:46engineers, and investors attend a new
7:48conference that's built around one
7:50purpose, failure. Talking about failure,
7:53embracing failure, trying to make
7:55failure a little bit more acceptable in
7:58the mainstream. The conference was
8:00called FailCon. Now, the founder, Cass
8:02Phillips, she had spent years in Silicon
8:04Valley, surrounded by startups that
8:07frequently failed. Yet, every conference
8:10and event that she went to, everything
8:11was about hockey stick graphs and how
8:13everybody was succeeding and how every
8:15everybody was getting rich and how
8:16everybody was going to be super
8:17successful. And she just recognized that
8:20that wasn't the actual experience of
8:22most entrepreneurs. So, at FailCon,
8:25everything was built around celebrating
8:28failures. At the beginning of the event,
8:29she would always ask the audience, "How
8:31many people here have have failed at
8:33some sort of business venture?" And
8:34pretty much everybody's hand would go
8:36up. And then all of the speakers, their
8:38keynotes had to be about their failures
8:40and what they learned from their
8:42failures. And the conference was a huge
8:43hit. They did versions in like Tokyo and
8:46Dubai and London and all over the place.
8:48They had sessions on all sorts of topics
8:50from really practical kind of nuts
8:52andbolts startup scaling advice to
8:56philosophical discussions of like what
8:58is suffering and what is despair and
9:00basically FailCon kind of had a moment.
9:03You know, it got a lot of press, got a
9:05lot of attention. It was kind of a a big
9:07thing in the early 2010s. But then in
9:092014, Phillips decided to shut it down.
9:12And the party line was that Phillips
9:14believed that she had achieved her goal
9:15which was that she had made failure
9:17acceptable in in the in the mainstream.
9:20But I don't really buy that and I don't
9:22think anybody else really bought that
9:23either. Personally, I think Failcon
9:26probably failed for a simple reason
9:28which is it's actually the same reason a
9:30lot of conferences fail, which is that
9:32it was specifically targeted towards
9:34people who don't have money. [laughter]
9:37Like if you think about like a
9:39conference for people who have failing
9:41startups or have a recently failed
9:43startup, what do all those people have
9:45in common? They are probably broke or in
9:47debt.
9:48>> Yeah.
9:48>> And it's hard to build a thriving
9:51conference business on attendees that
9:53are broke or in debt. But there was
9:55actually a deeper structural problem
9:57with Failcon and the philosophy behind
9:59it. And I think this is the same
10:00structural problem behind every
10:03inspirational story that we all hear
10:05about how somebody failed. You know that
10:07Michael Jordan failed so many times or
10:09Steve Jobs failed so many times and that
10:12is the issue of survivorship bias. So
10:15survivorship bias, it's a concept that
10:18originated with bombers in World War II.
10:21So the military, the US military noticed
10:23that all the bombers would come back
10:25with bullet holes in the same areas of
10:28the plane. And so they did the obvious
10:29thing that you would do if you didn't
10:31think about it very much, which is that
10:32they sourced more armor to reinforce the
10:35parts of the planes that had been hit
10:37with all the bullet holes. But
10:39surprisingly, this didn't prevent more
10:41bombers from being shot down. In fact,
10:43they saw no statistical increase in in
10:45the amount of bombers that survived. So
10:48after a couple years of this happening,
10:50it was an analyst in the Air Force uh by
10:52the name of Abraham Wald that realized
10:54that people had it completely backwards.
10:57the airplanes that were coming back with
10:59bullet holes all in the same spots, you
11:01know, around the wings and the tail fin,
11:04those were actually the places you
11:06didn't want to reinforce because those
11:08were the spots that the airplanes could
11:09survive being shot. Instead, what he
11:12pointed out is you wanted to reinforce
11:13all of the spots on the planes that
11:15didn't have bullet holes because the
11:18planes that got shot in those spots were
11:20the ones that didn't come back. this
11:22flaw in reasoning, this this faulty
11:24assumption that we all kind of have
11:25around this, it is something that we do
11:27all the time. Survivorship bias, it
11:30infiltrates all sorts of things,
11:32especially in our industry. We look at a
11:34story like Steve Jobs and all the
11:35inspiration around all the times he
11:37failed or like Michael Jordan, how he
11:39got cut from his high school team, but
11:41those aren't really failures. I mean,
11:44there are literally millions of people
11:46who got cut from their high school
11:47basketball team and none of them became
11:50Michael Jordan, right? So, that is
11:52actually not something that is worth
11:54learning from. Yet, it's a huge part of
11:56his story and it's a huge part of
11:59explaining why he is who he is. You see
12:02this happen with productivity a lot in
12:04our space, right? You you you've got
12:07>> oh god
12:07>> some guy who's I don't know he he writes
12:09like five books a year and has started
12:12six companies and I don't know he like
12:14wakes up at five and
12:16>> eats an upside down waffle or something
12:18and so everybody goes out and starts
12:20eating upside down waffles and and
12:22thinks that that's going to make them as
12:23su successful as this like random dude
12:25on YouTube and the truth is is that the
12:28defining variables of success are often
12:31hidden from us they're not apparent and
12:34the things that are apparent
12:36are actually quite common. We're just
12:38not aware of the thousands of other
12:40people that share that trait but don't
12:42share the same success.
12:43>> Yeah. So, it's really just like a big
12:44humble brag for a lot of these people,
12:46right? They're like they're trying to
12:47pass these things off as failure, but
12:49really it's just part of their whole
12:51success story, which makes it still just
12:53another survivorship biased story of
12:56some kind, right? And but we end up kind
12:58of fetishizing those failures that are
13:00just the bullet holes in the wings that
13:02on the planes that came back. Right.
13:03Right. And this this is kind of where
13:06failure porn came out of. And this
13:08actually came from a guy Jeff Lewis who
13:09himself was a founder uh of this uh
13:11company called Founders Fund. But he
13:13wrote this post in 2014, same year that
13:16Failcon failed. He wrote this in in the
13:18Washington Post and he coined the term
13:20failure porn. And he's got this great
13:22quote in It says uh it's failure as fast
13:24fashion pedled by wildly successful
13:26people packaged for mass consumption
13:28that's no more reflective of real
13:30failure than commercially produced
13:32pornography is of real sex. [laughter]
13:35Very vivid vivid example there, right?
13:38He has his own little kind of failure
13:39porn story around this too with his his
13:41company. He was like $45,000 in credit
13:44card debt. He was going to pitch some
13:46people on his fund um one day and didn't
13:49have like the 20 bucks to take a cab
13:50across town. So, he had to walk on an
13:52empty stomach for 45 minutes. And it was
13:55like he he calls one of his co-workers
13:57and was like, "I I'm I'm such a failure.
13:59This isn't going to work." And he got
14:00this pep talk from his co-orker and
14:02everything, went and did this pitch and
14:04they got funding and then turned it
14:05around and it was a multi-million dollar
14:07company. And you know, that's a failure
14:09porn story. That's not He's like the
14:11real failure would have been me just
14:12giving up there. This is just a low
14:14point in the story. It wasn't an actual
14:16failure.
14:16>> Yeah.
14:17>> And he said, "The problem with this is
14:18that we trivialize failure when we do
14:21this real failure." This article, you
14:23should go read it. It's actually full of
14:25these great little lines in it. It says,
14:26"Just as excessive consumption of
14:28pornography desensitizes a person to the
14:31joys of real sex, excessive consumption
14:33of failure porn desensitizes a person to
14:36the horrors of real failure." So the
14:39again, it's these survivorship bias
14:41stories.
14:42>> Yeah. take away from the actual
14:44failures, the actual harm that's
14:46actually done by real failure.
14:48>> Well, it's funny because just in you
14:50recounting his story, I think you you
14:54described exactly what's wrong with all
14:57of these stories, which is when you said
14:59it, you said he was broke and and on his
15:01last legs and then he managed to get
15:03funding with his last pitch meeting or
15:05whatever and then went on to become
15:07successful. It's that went on to become
15:09successful.
15:10>> Yes. That's where actually all of the
15:12meat and and valuable information is,
15:15but it's not nearly as exciting or
15:18interesting as the failure porn. So, the
15:20failure porn is what gets shared. And
15:22it's funny, too. I was thinking like
15:24when we were prepping for this this
15:25episode, I was thinking about the
15:26failcon thing. I was thinking it would
15:30probably get really old fast. If you are
15:32a struggling startup founder working 60
15:3570 hour weeks barely scraping by and
15:37year after year you get up and you hear
15:39these like the guy who started PayPal or
15:41the guy who started you know whatever
15:44get up and tell you these all these
15:46situations that they they were in at one
15:49point at a certain point it'd be like
15:51okay I get it like they struggled what
15:55did you do that worked right
15:57>> yeah yeah it's not a complicated message
15:59>> yeah I don't I don't care what didn't
16:00work tell me It worked, right? Exactly.
16:03Exactly.
16:03>> A quick pause. We'll be right back after
16:05this.
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19:01solved. All right, we're back. Where
19:04were we?
19:05>> We've romanticized failure over the last
19:0720, 30 years to the point where it's
19:08like it almost doesn't mean anything.
19:10>> Why do you think that is, though? Like,
19:11why do you think we romanticize it? I
19:13think there's kind of a um a little bit
19:15of a self-attribution bias going on. So
19:17like your failures, you want to um kind
19:20of externalize them, right?
19:21[clears throat] And you want to
19:22internalize your successes. And I think
19:24part of it is is like, oh no, look at
19:26me. I went through all of this. I failed
19:27all this and I still came out the other
19:29side and look how look how strong I am
19:31>> strong I am successful.
19:33>> Look how gritty I am. Look how you know
19:35I think there is kind of like a it's a
19:37humble brag.
19:38>> We've talked on previous episodes. Yeah.
19:40how we we tend to our memories tend to
19:42package things in ways that like exalt
19:44ourselves a little bit.
19:45>> You don't want to attribute it to luck
19:46either. Remember the luck episode like
19:48like saying, "Oh, I got lucky in this.
19:50That doesn't feel good." When it's like,
19:52"Actually, yeah, a lot of other people
19:53did the exact same things as you and you
19:55came out on top." Maybe you just got
19:56lucky. Like instead, you say, "No, no,
19:58no. I went through, look at all the
19:59hardship I went through. Look at all
20:01this [ __ ] that I waited through." I
20:02actually went and researched how many
20:04other microprocessor companies there
20:07were at the same time as Apple and there
20:09were like dozens, dozens and dozens and
20:11dozens and dozens and it it was really
20:13interesting. They all they all failed
20:14and they all had like similar stories
20:17and story arcs and made similar
20:18decisions and the human mind thinks in
20:20terms of narratives. When you are
20:22constructing a narrative, you always
20:23need to have some sort of obstacle or
20:26>> setback. Yeah. The three act story arc.
20:29>> Yeah. It's it's just the way our brains
20:31work. I think it is very natural that we
20:34look at a highly complex long-term
20:38project or path and we just simplify it
20:40into, yeah, I was down on my luck. All
20:43these things went wrong, but I fought
20:44through it. I learned, I survived, and
20:46now I'm successful, right? Like that's
20:48just kind of I think our default
20:50narrative that we like to package around
20:52things. And also like narratives make
20:54things feel meaningful. Like if I was
20:56really honest about my success and like
20:58the amount of luck and circumstance that
21:00was involved in it, it would feel less
21:03meaningful to me and I I do think that
21:05we are biased towards generating
21:08something that feels very meaningful and
21:09and purposeful in our lives.
21:10>> Yeah, there's not a lot of lesson to be
21:12taken from luck, right? Something just
21:14lucky. So, we'd rather have a narrative
21:16that's a little bit cleaner and has some
21:17sort of struggle in it that we could
21:19identify with.
21:20>> Are you susceptible to failure porn?
21:21>> Oh, man. That that whole Michael Jordan
21:23story, man. when especially when I was a
21:25kid that was like, "Oh, yeah. You know,
21:27he's he's just he's got all that grit
21:29and he's he's he he won't give up, you
21:30know, never give up and he's just got to
21:32fight through all the failures and
21:33getting cut from the team." All of that.
21:35Oh, dude, I bought into that big time.
21:37In the 2010s, you really did see this,
21:39too. You really did out there was like,
21:40"No, no, no." Like fail fail fast. What
21:43was the Facebook um move fast and break?
21:47That whole thing. Everybody got caught
21:48up in that.
21:49>> Yeah. How'd that turn out? [laughter]
21:50>> Yeah. Right. Right. It's very seductive.
21:53It's very seductive.
21:54>> Yeah. Yeah.
21:55>> Everybody, you know, especially
21:56Americans, we love an underdog, too,
21:58right? So, somebody who's down on their
21:59luck and down and out, no, they came
22:01back from it. That's a that's a great
22:02arc. So, I get asked all the time, would
22:05I change anything about subtle art? And
22:07generally, my answer is no. But it's
22:10funny, th this episode, it made me kind
22:14of think back to that chapter. I'm like,
22:15oof, yeah, I kind of it was a little
22:18simplistic. the depth that we're going
22:20to go into in this episode is
22:23much more thorough than what's written
22:25there. I mean, I I do think the general
22:27lesson is in that you do have to make
22:30mistake like everybody makes mistakes,
22:31everybody fails, and that's the fuel for
22:33learning and growth. I do think that is
22:36true, but I also I also think that that
22:38is a bit of a simplistic way to look at
22:41it. There's a lot more going on under
22:42the hood than just simply like, oh, I
22:45tried a thing and it didn't work. What
22:47can I learn from it?
22:48>> Yeah. Like that's our surface level
22:50experience. But there's some deeper
22:52questions in terms of like how are you
22:53defining success and failure? Who are
22:56you choosing to be in that pursuit? Are
22:58you defining failures in ways that you
22:59you are actually going to be comfortable
23:01with? Like that that's actually way more
23:03interesting. And that's some of the
23:04stuff that we're going to get into here.
23:06>> What we're calling kind of the old way
23:07of looking at failure too though, which
23:10was more just like, oh, you're a
23:12failure. like people, you know, people
23:14saying I'm a failure or taking it so
23:17personally or overidentifying with it.
23:19Obviously, that's not good. We wanted to
23:21get away from that. But what we're
23:23saying is maybe we overshot a little bit
23:24too far the other way.
23:25>> Yeah. Yeah. Do do we want to call this
23:27like a a Hegelian synthesis, right? So,
23:30aren't you aren't you excited for that?
23:32>> Do we want to call it that?
23:33>> Of course we do. Of course we do. This
23:35is solved. [laughter]
23:37>> Where we where we over philosophize
23:39everything.
23:39>> Yeah. So I know what a Hegelian
23:40synthesis is, but why don't you go ahead
23:42and explain to everybody else what that
23:43means? [laughter]
23:45>> George Friedrich Hegel, the German
23:46philosopher, the idealist philosopher
23:48from the 19th century, he said a lot of
23:50things, but one of the things that stuck
23:52interestingly, he didn't actually write
23:53it, but like people later attributed it
23:55to him. So they call it a Hegelian
23:57synthesis, which is that basically
23:59thought and information progresses in
24:01like a a pretty standard pattern, which
24:02is that you have a thesis of how the
24:05world works or something that's true.
24:06you have an antithesis which is the
24:08contradiction or or an alternative
24:10hypothesis and then what generally
24:13happens is a synthesis of those two
24:16viewpoints. It's not that one of those
24:18two things is right. It's usually some
24:20synthesis of the two points of view that
24:23wins out and becomes the next thesis and
24:26develops its own antithesis. That was
24:27like the progression of history and and
24:29knowledge in his in his view. The
24:32Hegelian dialectic of failure would be
24:34that the the old school version of
24:37failure was that it was this horrible
24:40shameful thing and that you should hide
24:42your failures from people and you should
24:43avoid trying anything that you're going
24:45to potentially fail. That's kind of like
24:46our default approach towards failure.
24:48The antithesis of that is that failure
24:52should be celebrated, that it should be
24:53encouraged, that we should, you know,
24:55support people in their failures, which
24:58sounds nice if you've if you've got a
25:01startup and are trying to like find
25:02investors, but I don't know, like go
25:04talk to a methhead or uh like somebody
25:07in an abusive relationship. That's not a
25:09message you you want to be generalizing
25:11out to the broader populace. So you
25:14could say that this podcast we are
25:17attempting a synthesis of the two views,
25:20a more holistic view of failure and how
25:24to approach it in your own life and how
25:26to how to benefit from it. The important
25:28thing here, the reason why we're kind of
25:30[ __ ] on this positive view of
25:33failure is that the data is in and it
25:38doesn't really help.
25:40>> Mhm. We've taken the last few decades to
25:42figure that out too, [laughter] right?
25:45There is this kind of weird paradox
25:46where if you go out and you talk to
25:48people, they'll tell you just like in
25:50the business world, let's say, it's
25:51easier than ever to start a business.
25:53And yet people are more afraid to start
25:55a business than ever. This is right
25:57after all of these this 20 years of
25:59failure worship has come out of the
26:01culture, right? And yet people are still
26:04>> more riskaverse than ever.
26:05>> Still more riskaverse than ever. Like
26:07just some stats like basically one in
26:08two Americans say they would fear
26:11starting a business because of the fear
26:13of failure because it might fail. Half
26:15of all people around the world too
26:17they've done these surveys um every year
26:19and the share of people uh agreeing that
26:22starting a business is easy. That
26:24climbed to almost 60%. And yet again
26:28almost one in two people all around the
26:29world say they're afraid of failing in
26:32one of these ventures even though it's
26:33easier than ever. So the message didn't
26:35stick basically, right? You could
26:37actually argue that things got even
26:40worse. We didn't get more comfortable
26:42with failure, right? We probably got
26:44less than what actually happened here,
26:45right? What was actually going on? One
26:47of the big things that I found anyway
26:49through all this is that um
26:51perfectionism actually seems to be
26:53becoming more and more of a problem. If
26:55people were actually taking this to
26:56heart, if they were taking this advice,
26:58this failure worship to heart, what you
27:00would probably see is actually less
27:01perfectionism out there. But we see the
27:04exact opposite of that in all these
27:05different studies. Now, before I jump
27:07into that though, real quick, there's
27:08two different kinds of perfectionism
27:10that researchers kind of two broad
27:12buckets that they can sort it into,
27:14right? One is what they call
27:15perfectionistic strivings. Okay, this is
27:18when you hold high standards and you you
27:20are aiming for success. This is
27:22basically fine uh as long as you don't
27:24like take it too far. You're really just
27:26like, I have high standards and I want
27:28to I want to hit those. But you don't
27:29take it too personally when you don't
27:30hit them. Okay, contrast that with
27:32perfectionistic concerns, which is the
27:35more kind of toxic form of perfectionism
27:37that people can have, which is basically
27:40you're holding yourself to a very high
27:42standard and if you don't hit that,
27:43there's something very wrong with you or
27:45the world or whatever, right? That is
27:48actually associated with more like
27:50mental health problems even to
27:52depression, anxiety, less well-being
27:54that you have with that. Okay? What they
27:56found is if you kind of control for
27:57those concerns, if you if you you can
28:00parse all of that out, if you just have
28:02this like striving perfectionism where
28:04you're like, I want things to be better
28:06and I'm going to aim for them and it's
28:07okay if I don't hit them, but I'm going
28:09to continue to aim for them and strive
28:10for them. That seems to be okay. That
28:12seems to be fine. It's when we get into
28:13that more toxic form of perfectionism
28:15that the wheels start to fall off a
28:17little bit. Okay. When we actually look
28:19at the numbers too, over the last 20 to
28:2130 years across all the countries that
28:24celebrate failure the most, mostly the
28:26anglophere, right? United States, UK,
28:28Canada, Australia, New Zealand, those
28:30places, we all celebrate failure a whole
28:32bunch. Perfectionism has actually risen
28:34and the toxic kinds of perfectionism
28:36have risen the most even too. They've
28:38done some studies um from the late 2010s
28:41up to today and they see that this trend
28:43is just accelerating. It's not getting
28:45any better. They've basically concluded
28:46that, and this is a quote, young people
28:48perceive that others are more demanding
28:50of them. They are more demanding of
28:52others and more demanding of themselves.
28:54Like people are holding us to higher
28:56standards, we're holding oursel to
28:57higher standards, and we're holding
28:58other people to higher standards all at
28:59the same time. Like all of that is going
29:01up when really probably none of that is
29:03actually true.
29:04>> Okay?
29:05>> And yet that's against the backdrop of,
29:07hey, it's okay to fail. Go out there and
29:08fail. Nobody cares. Give it your best
29:11shot and it's going to be okay. And yet
29:12we have this rise imperfectionism and
29:15rise of these ungodly standards that we
29:18put on ourselves during that. So what's
29:20going on here?
29:21>> I hate to be that guy.
29:22>> Yeah.
29:23>> But I think it's the phones.
29:24>> You think it's the phones?
29:25>> I think it's the phones.
29:26>> You think it's the phones. This did the
29:28trend started before the phones. I think
29:29it accelerated with phones.
29:31>> It could be the internet. I mean the
29:33difference between say our adolescence
29:35in kids today. You know, when we were
29:38growing up, if you asked a girl out and
29:40she shot you down, nobody remembered.
29:43Nobody saw it.
29:45>> I remember.
29:47>> Nobody else remembered. Nobody else saw
29:49it.
29:50>> Um, you know, if if you made a huge
29:52mistake in front of the class or you did
29:54something really embarrassing or you got
29:55kicked out of school or whatever, now
29:57everything is documented. There are
29:59consequences to every failure that
30:01exists today in a way that didn't exist
30:03before. And and I actually think that
30:06there's some usefulness of forgetting. I
30:09was reading about uh Walt Disney
30:11recently and it was super fascinating in
30:14that he came from a family of failed
30:16entrepreneurs and he himself was a
30:18failed entrepreneur like what what today
30:20we know as Disney was like his I think
30:23his third or fourth business that he
30:24started and his father started a bunch
30:26of businesses that failed and his uncle
30:28started a bunch of businesses that
30:29failed. And it was funny because what
30:31happened back in those days is you would
30:33start a business, it would fail, you go
30:35into a bunch of debt and you just pack
30:37your [ __ ] up and go to the next town
30:38because nobody in the next town knew
30:40that you failed,
30:42>> right? And so you could start over, you
30:43could get new new investments or get a
30:45new loan and start a new business. And
30:48so the the Disneys would kind of like
30:49bounce from town to town around the
30:51Midwest trying all these different
30:53ventures, watching them fail
30:55spectacularly and then like just kind of
30:58moving on and not not having it track
31:01with them. Whereas today, if something
31:03like calamitous happens at one of your
31:05jobs, it's going to be online forever,
31:08right? There's going to be a record of
31:09it potentially forever. People are
31:11always going to have access either to
31:13your old workplace or your old boss or
31:16your old LinkedIn profile or something
31:18you wrote like 14 years ago. It's like
31:21comedians getting cancelled for tweets
31:23that they wrote in 2008. You know, like
31:25there's just there's a record today that
31:28follows you that didn't exist in
31:31previous generations. Even if people are
31:34more accepting of failure in the moment,
31:36which I agree with you, I don't think
31:38they are these days. Even if they were,
31:41the fact that that moment is now going
31:43to follow you for decades across your
31:45life means that you have to wait it so
31:48much higher than you would have
31:50otherwise.
31:51>> Yeah. I mean, I guess I do remember, you
31:52know, when social media started to be a
31:54thing and we had to be warned like, hey,
31:57watch what you put online. Now thinking,
31:59I mean, that's like now you just don't
32:00even do it because you can't even help
32:02if it gets online or not. Yeah. I mean,
32:04I remember so to your point about it
32:06being maybe before the phones, I
32:07remember when I was
32:09>> single in my 20s and it it started to
32:10become a thing about like googling the
32:13people you were going on dates with
32:14because you would
32:15>> sometimes you would find like some
32:17pretty crazy [ __ ] I just imagine that
32:18that's like 10xed.
32:20>> These two researchers, Kieran and Hill,
32:21they give some other reasons as well. Um
32:23well like one of them being just kind of
32:24the structural competition
32:27especially like in capitalist societies
32:29like competition in the markets got so
32:31crazy and that just kind of bled into
32:33all the other uh areas of life. getting
32:35into a good university or something like
32:37that that all of a sudden became super
32:38super important and like doing your your
32:41application by committee, you know, and
32:42having your whole family or getting
32:44tutors or that really took off in the
32:47last, you know, 20 to 30 years as well.
32:49Like the competition, intense
32:51competition around those sorts of things
32:53happened. At the same time too, they're
32:55talking about the collectivist
32:57institutions that we used to have where
32:58some of that would get diffused,
33:00>> right? some of that kind of tension of
33:02your failures or whatever in your church
33:03or your whatever communities you were in
33:05church temples whatever you were going
33:07to those are not you know it's it's much
33:10more individualistic like
33:11hyperindividualism has contributed to a
33:14very competitive
33:15>> life not just marketplace but life
33:17>> and people are by and large lonelier so
33:20they have less of a support system right
33:21so they have fewer friends or family
33:23members close to them that they can rely
33:24upon if they do screw up or if something
33:26does go wrong it's interesting because
33:28what we're talking about it
33:30not about people's philosophical
33:32acceptance of failure. It is more about
33:35the stakes that are involved, right?
33:38Like when you remove so social and
33:41emotional safety nets, when you make
33:43everything more competitive, and when
33:46you add a historical record that follows
33:48you for pretty much your entire life,
33:50and you can't get rid of it, what that
33:52does is it just puts so much more
33:55importance on each action and behavior
33:57that in a way that did not exist
33:59certainly 30 years ago, but definitely
34:01not like a hundred years ago.
34:02>> One other thing they bring up too is um
34:03like anxious and controlling parenting.
34:06There's some debate around this. um they
34:07their their studies have been questioned
34:09a little bit, but you do see it on at
34:11least an individual level like kids who
34:13do come from households where the
34:15parents are very controlling and you
34:16know expect a lot. They have very high
34:19rates of this toxic perfectionism as
34:20well. Whether that's pervasive across
34:22the culture or not, I'm not sure, but
34:24that can definitely if you're one of
34:25those people that can definitely have a
34:27big uh big impact as well.
34:29>> Shout out to all of our Asian listeners
34:31right now.
34:31>> Right. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. So
34:34perfectionism is rising. We see that it
34:37is really worse amongst young people
34:39too. This is where we have the most data
34:40too. We don't have as much data for
34:41older people, but it is worse amongst uh
34:43young people. Half of all teenagers all
34:46around the world, they fear uh judgment
34:49for failing in some way. They they
34:50report that they say when they're
34:51failing, they worry about what others
34:53might think of them, which you know,
34:55okay, that's teenagers. I get that. But
34:56>> but the risk of the stats of risk
34:58aversion are so high right now.
35:00>> They're so high. They're accelerating
35:01like I was saying, right?
35:02>> Kids are not asking each other out.
35:03They're not taking risks. They're not
35:05going out. They're not having sex.
35:06They're not even learning to drive at
35:08the same rates that they used to. So,
35:09it's yeah, there's a lot of risk
35:11aversion going on.
35:12>> One really interesting thing we found
35:14though, too, and a lot of people think
35:15that, well, I'm just not as good as
35:17these people, and so of course, I'm
35:19afraid of failure or whatever. An
35:20interesting thing we found was actually
35:22that the fear of failure is often times
35:24the worst amongst the highest achievers.
35:27So people out there who are actually
35:28already doing the straight A students,
35:30you know, the ones that are doing all
35:31the clubs, the ones that are out there
35:33achieving, looking like they're, you
35:35know, having a great time, they're
35:36actually the ones who are the most
35:38afraid of failure,
35:39>> which is fascinating. I feel like so
35:42many people use fear of failure as an
35:44excuse for not doing the thing. Whereas
35:46it's like, okay, the people who are
35:48actually out there doing the thing and
35:49they're doing it well are more afraid
35:52than you are.
35:52>> Right. And we're going to find out why
35:54that is here in a little bit, too. What
35:55would you say is your relationship with
35:57failure? Because I know you've you've
35:58struggled with perfectionism. Yeah.
36:00Quite a bit throughout your life.
36:01>> Yeah. I um I I wanted to come in here
36:03and say, well, you know, like I don't
36:05the failures I do have, I don't see them
36:06as failures. But then I I think about
36:09the perfection. I have some toxic
36:11perfectionism. What it ends up doing is
36:13it makes you not take a lot of the risks
36:16that that you would want to take or just
36:19like I don't know, go and find it out.
36:20Like I look I don't I look at some of
36:22the stuff you do and you're just like
36:23we're going to try this and ah it's
36:25didn't work. Let's just keep moving. You
36:27know I don't think you're anyone to
36:29dwell on that and I I dwell on stuff
36:31man. I dwell on stuff for sure. It does
36:35cost me a lot in terms of yeah in terms
36:38of the outcomes that I've I've seen. I
36:40just haven't taken some of the bigger
36:41swings that I probably would have
36:42because of that.
36:44>> Do you think some of that is that you
36:45grew up with higher stakes? cuz like I
36:48know like my wife grew up pretty poor
36:50and like
36:51>> ah
36:51>> the margin for error when she was young
36:53was just very slim. So so she's
36:56developed I think she has kind of
36:57evolved into a person that is just very
36:59wary of of risking failure.
37:02>> Yeah. And I think if if you do come from
37:03that kind of background and the way you
37:05got out of it was by through performance
37:08that puts a lot of weight on performance
37:10then right like I I got out of that
37:12through school and you know the
37:14activities that I was involved in that
37:16were that contributed to my education
37:18and all of that. And so you learn that
37:21oh in order to not have to go back into
37:24that world or not be in a more
37:25precarious state you have to perform.
37:28you have there's something you have to
37:29do or be or whatever it is and that
37:33Yeah, I bet a lot of people can identify
37:35with that.
37:35>> I'm a weirdo. I'm definitely I I think
37:38I'm somebody that are in a lot of ways,
37:40Mark. [laughter]
37:41You really are.
37:43>> I I I think this is one area where I'm
37:45not relatable. I think I'm really good
37:47with this just because I mean I'm not I
37:49I don't give a [ __ ] right? Like I just
37:51I I genuinely don't like it really I
37:53mean you've seen this for years. It
37:55really doesn't bother me like launching
37:57something that fails or putting
37:59something out there that bombs or, you
38:02know, saying something that gets me a
38:04thousand angry email. Like, I'm just
38:06kind of water off my back, you know? And
38:09it it's interesting because when I was
38:11younger, I spent a lot of time kind of
38:13thinking about where that comes from.
38:15And I've got all sorts of narratives and
38:17explanations, you know, growing up in
38:19kind of a weird environment
38:21>> that I I felt I always felt like a black
38:22sheep where I grew up. My dad's a lot
38:24more kind of rigid and perfectionist
38:27than I am. But my grandfather, I mean,
38:30you talk about not giving a [ __ ] Like
38:32it was he started seven companies. He
38:34became a millionaire three times, went
38:36bankrupt three times. And according to
38:39my dad, he said if you if you saw him,
38:42you would never know which end of the
38:44pendulum he was on. Like you could never
38:46tell. It didn't bother him.
38:48>> He didn't care. And I've I've felt that
38:51way, too. like I've I've lost a lot of
38:53money on some stupid decisions and it
38:55actually freaked me out how much it
38:56didn't bother me.
38:57>> There is there any area of your life
38:59where you identify failure that either
39:02you did or didn't learn from or like is
39:05there any particular area?
39:07>> I've thought about this in terms of
39:08regrets. So like I I generally don't
39:11regret many things and and what I the
39:15thing I would point to the things that
39:17like I do feel say dwell on or I feel
39:20like some degree of shame or guilt it's
39:22when I I feel like I have failed people.
39:25>> Yeah. Yeah.
39:26>> So if if it's just me and if it's like
39:29just my money or my stuff, I really
39:32don't seem to care. Like I'm I'm good,
39:35you know? I could sleep on this concrete
39:36floor tomorrow. Like it's fine. If I
39:39feel like I failed somebody I really
39:40care about like that that eats at me for
39:42a long time.
39:44>> We're gonna get into some of that then.
39:45>> Uh oh.
39:45>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh
39:46>> oh.
39:46>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh
39:47>> oh. Am I Am I getting on the sofa this
39:49this episode?
39:50>> No. No. No. No. No. No.
39:52>> I mean, yes. But [laughter]
39:54>> we'll we'll get into why that might be.
39:56I think
39:56>> Yeah. This hints at where we're going
39:59with this episode and that I don't
40:01actually see most of my failures as
40:04failures. The crux of what we're going
40:06to get into is that failure is actually
40:09more of a definitional problem than it
40:12is an actual problem. Like the fact that
40:16you are failing at things in your life
40:17is not really the problem.
40:20The real problem, if there is one, is
40:22how you've chosen to define failure for
40:24yourself and and how you've chosen to
40:27measure yourself. And that's actually
40:29where we're going to end up going with
40:30this starting with the next chapter. But
40:32to understand that and really have an
40:35appreciation for it, we do need to get
40:38into some of the evolutionary mechanisms
40:41behind our sense of failure, the
40:44feelings and emotions that come along
40:45with it, the social repercussions that
40:47are associated with it, and why
40:50something like an embarrassing email or
40:53uh getting shot down by somebody you
40:56have a crush on feels like [ __ ] death
40:59in the moment. like just makes you want
41:01to crawl in a hole and never come out
41:03again. Like why does that happen? Why
41:05does it hurt so much?
41:06>> Why does failure hurt so bad?
41:07>> Why is it so hard sometimes? And and the
41:10important thing is is that the answer it
41:13it's not just your childhood. It it's
41:16not a mindset. It's not it's not about
41:20learning, you know, finding the silver
41:22lining and things like sure all those
41:24things matter at the margins, but really
41:28we're going to go way back and we're
41:30going to go back 2 million years and and
41:33look at some of the biological machinery
41:36that's going on behind the scenes and
41:38and try to get a deeper understanding of
41:40why all these things happen. So stick
41:43around. But first, we're gonna take a
41:45quick break, so don't go anywhere. This
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43:25This episode is brought to you by AG1.
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44:49AG1.
44:54So the modern research on why failure
44:57and loss hurt so much begins in 1969 in
45:02Israel. It's Hebrew University. Daniel
45:04Conaman is a new professor and he
45:07invites Amos Tverki to give a guest
45:09lecture to his psychology students. And
45:13at the time, Tverki is a bit of a
45:15celebrity academic in Israel. He's
45:18considered a genius. Uh he was a very
45:20famous paratrooper in one of the recent
45:23wars. Uh he's generally beloved by
45:25everybody. and he gets up in front of
45:27Conorman's class and he starts lecturing
45:29about how people's guesses are actually
45:31often statistically accurate that if you
45:34ask somebody to estimate like a large
45:37number across the population that
45:40people's intuitions are surprisingly
45:42good at this. Now Conaman is watching
45:44him lecture about this and he is
45:46thinking to himself this is total
45:48[ __ ] because Conaman was also a
45:51veteran but he had worked in the
45:53psychological unit. So he had watched as
45:55IDF analysts had made confident
45:58predictions created statistical models
46:00come up with all sorts of plans and been
46:03horribly wrong about every single one of
46:05them. He had actually seen the opposite
46:07that people's intuitions were absolutely
46:10terrible at predicting the future. So he
46:13politely lets Tiverki finish his lecture
46:15and all the students leave and he walks
46:17up to him afterwards and in classic
46:19Israeli fashion he's like I think you're
46:22wrong. [laughter]
46:24This is this is a bunch of [ __ ] and
46:26the two begin arguing about it. And as
46:28they're arguing finally they just kind
46:30of look at each other and agree. They're
46:32like well then let's study it and figure
46:34this out. So they plan to do some
46:36experiments together. And thus began
46:38probably the most fruitful research
46:40partnership in the history of the
46:42psychological field. Uh they would go on
46:44to publish dozens and dozens of studies.
46:47They would revolutionize not just the
46:49the the field of of psychology but also
46:52behavioral economics. They would win a
46:55Nobel Prize. Their influence in how we
46:58understand human thinking and human
47:00decision-m really can't be overstated.
47:03Now, their method was really
47:04interesting, which is that they would
47:06kind of just sit around together and
47:09they would spitball hypothetical
47:12situations to each other, like little
47:14thought experiments. And the reason they
47:16did this was to test each other's
47:17intuition. So, they would ask each other
47:19things like, let's say 600 people have a
47:21terminal illness, and you have enough
47:24money to finance one of two medical
47:26programs. The first medical program is
47:29guaranteed to save 200 of the 600
47:31people, but you're going to lose 400 of
47:33them. But the second medical program,
47:35you have a one-third chance of saving
47:37all 600, but a 2/3 chance of all 600
47:41dying.
47:42>> Which one would you choose?
47:43>> Um, I would probably go with the
47:44guaranteed 200.
47:46>> I probably would, too. It just
47:48instinctively feels
47:50>> better for some reason,
47:52>> right? And they notice this pretty much
47:54universally like almost everybody picks
47:57the first medical program even though
47:59mathematically they have the exact same
48:02>> Okay. Right.
48:02>> risk profile.
48:03>> Yeah.
48:04>> So it's funny little things like this,
48:05right? Like where it's like
48:06statistically both options are the same
48:08but we all intuitively are feel pretty
48:11strongly about the first program. So,
48:14they had another little fun thought
48:15experiment where uh they would present
48:18students with the situation where you
48:20could uh flip a coin and if it came up
48:22heads, you would make $1,000, but if it
48:24came up tails, you would lose $1,000.
48:27Sure enough, pretty much all the
48:28students turned this down. But what was
48:31really interesting is they changed the
48:33offer. So, you flip a coin, if it lands
48:36heads, you get $1,50.
48:38Even if it's tails, you only lose
48:40$1,000. Right? Right? So the expected
48:43value is actually positive.
48:44>> Okay?
48:44>> If you had infinite money, you should
48:47flip that coin as many times as you
48:48possibly can.
48:49>> Interestingly, pretty much all the
48:52students still turn down the opportunity
48:53to flip the coin.
48:54>> So time after time after time, they
48:57started to notice a pattern, which was
48:58that people tend to weigh losing
49:01something more than they value gaining
49:04something. They even did another little
49:06thought experiment with this is that
49:07they they took one group of people and
49:10they put a coffee mug in front of them.
49:12They said, "How much how much would you
49:13pay for this coffee mug on average?" And
49:15let's say the people said five bucks.
49:16Then they would take another group of
49:18people and they would give them the
49:19coffee mug and say, "How much would you
49:21sell this for?" And people wanted to
49:24sell it for more than they were willing
49:25to buy it for. Right? They valued losing
49:28the thing more than they valued gaining
49:31it in the first place. And this was
49:32really driven home for them because in
49:351973, Israel was invaded by all of its
49:37Arab neighbors. Uh, and they were called
49:40into active duty in what today is known
49:42as the Yam Kapoor war. And what was
49:45interesting is that both of them as they
49:46were riding off to the front. When they
49:50started looking at all of the
49:51intelligence failures and the military
49:54failures that happened leading up to
49:56that war, they kept seeing the same
49:57pattern. intelligence agencies that
50:00didn't want to risk losing too much. So,
50:03they papered over evidence of an
50:06impending invasion with different
50:09narratives or different stories. People
50:11who looked away from potential
50:13catastrophe because the loss of being
50:16wrong about it would have been so
50:19catastrophic for their career or you
50:21know for for whatever their platoon or
50:24their agency or whatever. Now this
50:25phenomenon eventually would become known
50:27as loss aversion. And Conorman and
50:29Tverki's big contribution was that they
50:31found pretty consistently that the ratio
50:34of how people weighted loss versus gain
50:37of the same thing was roughly 2:1. That
50:41people generally experience the loss of
50:43something as twice as bad as the benefit
50:45of gaining the same thing. And if
50:48anybody who's been competitive in sports
50:51or uh tried to win at anything like
50:53everybody knows that the pain of losing
50:56is significantly more severe than the
50:59joy of winning and it lasts much longer.
51:02Now they eventually kind of bundled up a
51:04lot of their experiments and they they
51:05broadly called it prospect theory uh and
51:08they would go on to win a Nobel Prize
51:10for it in 2002. Unfortunately, Tverki
51:13did not survive that long, but Conoran
51:15has always insisted that the work was
51:17theirs together um and has always given
51:20him credit uh for all the work that
51:22they've done together. But it raises a
51:25really interesting question, which is
51:27that if loss aversion is very much just
51:30baked into our psychology, it seems to
51:33be hardwired in all of us. Why is it
51:35there? What are the circumstances in
51:37which we evolved that loss aversion
51:39would make sense in nature? It's kind of
51:41cruel, right?
51:42>> Right. And as we're going to find out,
51:43like you can't train yourself out of it.
51:45You can't
51:46>> convince yourself. Like being aware of
51:48this does not change
51:50>> the fact that it that it exists inside
51:51of your brain. It's pretty much a
51:53fundamental aspect
51:54>> of of how we perceive risk and loss in
51:57our lives.
51:58>> So then the question is why? Why, Drew
52:00Bernhe? Tell me why. It's very cruel,
52:03like I said, right? It seems like a very
52:04cruel thing of the universe, I guess, to
52:07deliver us this like pain hurts so much
52:09more than than uh gaining something. You
52:11know, something good is not as equal as
52:13something that is equally bad. Like
52:15we're just we experience pain so much
52:17more vividly and acutely than we do of
52:19gaining something, right? Why is that?
52:22If we look at if we kind of step back a
52:24little bit, there's this really
52:26interesting study done on capuchin
52:28monkeys. Okay. You capuchans are like
52:30the little You think of the like little
52:31grinder, you know, like those little
52:33monkeys.
52:34>> You with the little symbols.
52:35>> Yeah. With the little symbols. Yeah.
52:36Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. They're
52:38cute little monkeys. But um they're
52:39smart, too. But we diverged from them
52:41about like 40 million years ago. We like
52:43a common ancestor. We haven't had one of
52:45those for a very very long time. But you
52:47can train them to operate in an in
52:50somewhat of an economy. Right. This this
52:52one researcher Keith Chan's from Yale
52:53back in the uh 2000s. He trained these
52:56capuchins to basically trade aluminum
52:59coins that he made for apples and uh
53:02fruits like that, right?
53:03>> Yeah.
53:04>> And they figured it out pretty quick.
53:05They they showed them that they could
53:07there was market fluctuations like some
53:08some days apples would cost this much or
53:10this much and the the capuchans would
53:12participate in this economy. Okay. So
53:14they they were smart enough to even do
53:15that. What they found out too is uh they
53:18they kind of set up this um experiment
53:20where you could test loss aversion. So
53:23they had one uh of the experimenters go
53:25and they would offer him one apple.
53:27Every now and then they would give them
53:28two apples for the same coin, for the
53:30same aluminum coin. And monkeys figured
53:32this out. Okay, fine. So you got another
53:34researcher that would come in
53:35>> and would show them present them two
53:37apples, but would sometimes take one
53:39apple away, but on average they were
53:41always getting the same number, like 1.4
53:44apples or something like that on
53:45average, right? For every time that they
53:47would give them one of these coins. Even
53:49those monkeys though at that point they
53:51preferred the first person who would
53:54guarantee them one and sometimes give
53:55them an extra one. Yeah. They didn't
53:57like the one who would give them two and
53:58then sometimes take one away. Right.
54:00>> So even in that context like these this
54:03this uh monkey that we haven't shared an
54:05ancestor with for 40 million years has
54:08loss aversion. They would rather take
54:10that that sure gain rather than have
54:13something that would be taken away from
54:14them. Okay. It is about 71% of the
54:17trades about 70% of the trades uh uh
54:20shook out like that. And they've
54:22actually shown this in other uh primate
54:24species too ones even closer to this
54:25too. So chimpanzees, gorillas,
54:27orangutans, they all show this what they
54:29call endowment effect which is basically
54:32uh what you're talking about is uh when
54:34you have something you would prefer to
54:35hang on to it rather than trade it for
54:37something else. Even even if that other
54:39thing might be a little bit more
54:40valuable, you're going to take the sure
54:41bet more more likely because you don't
54:43want to experience that loss. Yeah.
54:45Okay. So, it seems to be very very
54:47ancient hardware that we have like in
54:50the mamleian brain and in fact it is
54:52what they the the neuroscientific
54:54studies that they've done on this have
54:56found very ancient parts of our brain um
54:58that are involved with this uh very deep
55:01mamalian structures. It kind of splits
55:03into these like two systems. You have a
55:06a system that evaluates subjective value
55:08of whatever it is in the environment
55:10that you're hanging on to. Um, and then
55:13the systems associated with like
55:14negative emotions. And both of these
55:16fire up whenever we're experiencing a
55:18loss like this. And so it's and then
55:20it's very ancient these very ancient
55:22brain systems that are in like all
55:23mammals. So it seems to be very very
55:25hardwired into us. Now the question you
55:28asked was why like why would it be that
55:31way? And if you think about it from an
55:33evolutionary standpoint, right, most of
55:36our uh history as a species has kind of
55:39we've been living on the edge of
55:41survival, right? We're on the margin of
55:43survival. On that margin, if you get a
55:45windfall of some resource, food or
55:47whatever it is,
55:49>> that's kind of nice. It's going to get
55:50you through another month or two, maybe
55:51at the most. If you lose something in
55:54that same environment, though, you could
55:56be dead next week. There's an asymmetry
55:58going on there, right?
55:59>> If you lose something, you're dead. If
56:01you gain something, h
56:02>> you live a little longer.
56:03>> You live a little bit longer. Yeah.
56:04>> So there's there's an asymmetry there
56:06where the loss is much more significant
56:10for in terms of your survival than a
56:11gain would be in that. Conorman and
56:13Tverki figured out is that that's about
56:15a 2 to1 ratio. Yeah.
56:17>> And so that's why uh you would have this
56:20bias towards uh wanting to hang on to
56:22things and not lose them, right? the
56:24problem comes in is that we're using
56:26this ancient evolutionary hardware on
56:29modern problems that don't have those
56:31same types of consequences. Right.
56:33Right. So like if you're going to lose
56:3550 bucks or something like that, that's
56:36going to be the like
56:38>> uh emotionally the same as gaining $100
56:40that the veilance there is is completely
56:43skewed when that doesn't really have a
56:44whole lot of bearing on your life now.
56:46or like you're looking at your quarterly
56:48reports at your job or something like
56:50that and if you see the loss on there,
56:52you're registering a loss in your brain
56:55using that ancient hardware and that
56:57ancient software going on and it's
56:59registering as oh this is a threat to my
57:01survival when it's really not.
57:03>> Um so that that's the theory the
57:04evolutionary mismatch theory anyway is
57:06that we're applying these in all these
57:08wrong ways. I think it's exacerbated by
57:10the fact that you could probably answer
57:12too that in a modern life,
57:15the gain of something is worth more than
57:17the loss of the thing, right? Like if if
57:19you just think about money, right? Like
57:21the more money you make, the easier it
57:23is to make more.
57:24>> Yeah, that's pretty well established.
57:25Like financial wealth compounds in all
57:28sorts of different ways. Whereas like
57:30losing money, I mean sure you can go
57:32broke, but like you can't really I mean
57:35you can go into debt, you can declare
57:37bankruptcy, you can kind of start over.
57:39I would argue that the asymmetry today
57:42is actually the other way. I feel like
57:45probably people who are who are very
57:48intelligent risktakers, financial risk
57:50takers, whether it's traders, finance
57:52people, entrepreneurs,
57:55um even executives, uh at at large
57:58corporations, like they they probably
58:00have gotten good at fighting against
58:02their loss aversion, like leaning
58:04against it,
58:06>> um not listening to it.
58:08>> I Yeah, it's easy to like um do this in
58:11terms of like business and stuff like
58:12that. We also do it in a lot of other
58:14areas of our life though too, right?
58:15Like uh a breakup hurts a lot more than
58:18like getting into a new relationship
58:20feels good, right? Um I think that's a
58:22big one. I think there's a lot of people
58:23who was like, "Oh, I took this for
58:24granted and then I lost it and then all
58:26of a sudden you feel all this weight
58:27coming down on it." That's loss
58:28aversion. Yeah.
58:29>> You know, like you took the relationship
58:30for granted or something like that and
58:32then
58:33>> once it's gone then it hurts so much.
58:35That that's loss aversion. That also is
58:37loss aversion. Or
58:38>> you losing a job too, just like you're
58:40saying. And it's like, oh, that's
58:41probably a good thing in this in these
58:42days. You go find a better job or
58:43there's more jobs out there, right?
58:45>> Yeah. But it still feels worse.
58:46>> Stings more than it is any gain. And
58:48anybody will tell you this. Anybody
58:49who's acquired any sort of success will
58:52tell you this, that the losses hurt more
58:53than the gains. The gains are never as
58:55good as you think they're going to be.
58:56>> Yeah.
58:56>> That's baked in. That's hardwired in.
58:58And we can't get around it.
59:00>> I think probably the most interesting
59:02example of loss aversion that I found
59:03was Yeah.
59:04>> There was a really interesting study
59:06done in 2011 on golfers. Great title of
59:08a paper. It's called Is Tiger Woods
59:10lossoververse? [laughter]
59:12And basically it's these two guys, Pope
59:14and Schweitzer. They uh they analyze two
59:17and a half million putts on the PGA
59:19Tour. Over 400 different pros, uh 239
59:23tournaments. It's actually a really
59:24interesting uh way that they set up the
59:27study. So for people who don't play a
59:29lot of golf, um there are things called
59:31birdies, which is kind of the equivalent
59:33of like gaining a point. And then there
59:34are things called PAR, which is not
59:37losing a point. like it it's you you
59:39stay at the same the same number. So you
59:41could view putting for a birdie as
59:44putting to gain a point and you could
59:46view putting for par as putting to not
59:49lose a point.
59:49>> Not lose. Okay. All right.
59:50>> So what these researchers did is that
59:52they took the exact same golf courses.
59:55They took putts of the exact same
59:57distance, same exact location, but
59:59different players in different
1:00:00circumstances, either birdie putts or
1:00:02par putts. And they analyzed all
1:00:06millions and millions of putts. They
1:00:07analyzed the distance, location,
1:00:09direction, everything, apples to apples,
1:00:11and they found a significant difference
1:00:13in terms of the accuracy of birdie putts
1:00:15versus par putts. So birdie putts, they
1:00:18go in 83 and a half% of the time. Par
1:00:20putts go in 88% of the time,
1:00:23>> which is crazy. Yeah. Like there
1:00:25shouldn't be any difference, right? But
1:00:27>> So you're saying, hold on. So you're
1:00:28saying like, let's say it's a birdie
1:00:30putt at 10 ft. Yes.
1:00:31>> And it's a par putt at 10 feet
1:00:32>> from in in the same direction.
1:00:34>> Same direction, same spot, same
1:00:35everything. Yes. They're more likely to
1:00:37make the par putt than the birdie putt.
1:00:38>> Correct. Okay. Okay.
1:00:40>> And the argument, the conclusion is that
1:00:43players are paying a lot more attention.
1:00:45They're much more focused.
1:00:47>> They take more time. They're much more
1:00:48diligent. They're much more careful with
1:00:50their swing.
1:00:51>> They're afraid to lose.
1:00:53>> They're afraid to lose.
1:00:54>> Okay.
1:00:54>> So, so they put more effort into the par
1:00:56putts than they do the birdie putts.
1:00:58>> Interesting.
1:00:58>> And then that shows up in the result.
1:01:00>> Okay. So, they're they're loss averse
1:01:03and they are loss.
1:01:04>> Okay. So what's interesting is that the
1:01:07the loss aversion it mellowed as the
1:01:10tournament went on. So like golf
1:01:12tournaments they go on for four days
1:01:13usually and the further you get into the
1:01:16tournament you're no longer really
1:01:17playing against the course which is what
1:01:20you do on day one. You're playing
1:01:21against the other golfers. By day four
1:01:23you know how many strokes behind you are
1:01:25the person in front of you, how many
1:01:27strokes ahead you are of the person
1:01:28behind you. And so what you see is the
1:01:31loss aversion stops showing up with
1:01:33birdie and par putts and it starts
1:01:35showing up with their placement on the
1:01:36scoreboard.
1:01:38>> Interesting. So the this the standard
1:01:40changes the the relevant metric changes
1:01:43and their behavior changes because of
1:01:45that.
1:01:45>> Yes. And this is a nice little metaphor
1:01:47of how we're going to approach failure
1:01:49throughout this episode. Loss aversion
1:01:51never changes. What you are loss averse
1:01:54to changes based on your definition of
1:01:56failure. So when the definition of
1:01:58failure is boating on a on a hole of
1:02:01golf, you experience loss aversion
1:02:03there. But when that definition of loss
1:02:06changes to falling behind the the guy
1:02:08ranked behind you, then that becomes
1:02:11what you become loss averse to.
1:02:13>> Oh, interesting. Okay, that's
1:02:15fascinating. Okay. Okay. So that's
1:02:17that's all well and good. Uh we don't
1:02:19want to fall behind the leaderboard in
1:02:22golf. Yeah. Uh we want the best treats
1:02:25that we can trade for all of that. Like
1:02:26why does it hurt so bad when there
1:02:28really isn't anything
1:02:29>> being lost?
1:02:30>> Being lost, right?
1:02:31>> Or like there's no physical damage. Like
1:02:33physical pain makes sense, right?
1:02:35>> Yeah.
1:02:35>> Damage.
1:02:36>> And like a golf game, right? Like you
1:02:37lose a golf game, nobody died. Like
1:02:40nobody's going to die. But like people
1:02:42get really upset,
1:02:43>> right? Why? Yeah.
1:02:44>> Why do they do that, right? There's
1:02:46something inside of you that is treating
1:02:48that as some kind of injury of some
1:02:49sort, obviously. But but what is that?
1:02:51Like what is being injured throughout
1:02:54all of this, right? Well, it turns out
1:02:56there was this um this researcher in the
1:02:5890s, Mark Liry. He came up with this
1:03:00idea of what he calls the sociometer,
1:03:02right? And it's really what it is is
1:03:04it's tracking your status within a
1:03:06social group. So, you know, in our
1:03:08evolutionary past, we grew up in these
1:03:10small groups and letting someone down,
1:03:12failing something that actually that had
1:03:14real stakes to it, right? And so, you
1:03:17would lose status uh in that situation
1:03:20if uh you were to fail and fail other
1:03:22people especially in that situation. and
1:03:24losing status meant you could be left
1:03:26alone which meant you could die, right?
1:03:29There was like real stakes involved with
1:03:31this. So, it's not this like cold
1:03:33calculation that we're doing either.
1:03:35>> It's got to hurt.
1:03:36>> Yeah.
1:03:36>> It has to hurt for you to be motivated
1:03:38to not want to fail and not want to let
1:03:40other people down like this. This again,
1:03:42this is what he called the sociometer.
1:03:44>> It comes back to the fact that like pain
1:03:46at the end of the day is an evolutionary
1:03:48tool. It's a nudge towards behavior
1:03:50that's going to help you survive and
1:03:51replicate or at least helped us survive
1:03:53and replicate for hundreds of thousands
1:03:55of years. And so in this case, it's
1:03:56like, okay, even if it is an arbitrary
1:03:58game, even if it is just something as
1:04:01simple as like who can carry the biggest
1:04:03rock or whatever, in their caveman days,
1:04:06stuff like that mattered because it
1:04:08indicated who was the most reliable, who
1:04:11was going to help the tribe the most,
1:04:12who could save your life when you needed
1:04:14it, uh who could hunt the biggest game
1:04:17when it came down to it. And then status
1:04:19began began to become attached to that.
1:04:21And so we have this like internal
1:04:23measurement gauge inside of our head at
1:04:25all time trying to gauge how much status
1:04:28do we have with the group around us.
1:04:30>> Yeah. And it happens like almost
1:04:31automatically too. Even if you don't
1:04:33know the people around you, if there's
1:04:35any sense of there's a status thing
1:04:36going on, you latch on to that and you
1:04:38try to figure out exactly where you're
1:04:40sitting within that. There's this really
1:04:41interesting set of studies that was done
1:04:43um by Liry and others uh to uh that was
1:04:47they they brought people into the lab
1:04:49and they uh had strangers were assigned
1:04:53to just these meaningless groups there
1:04:55there wasn't really any meaning to them
1:04:56but they were told that they would
1:04:57either be included or excluded by the
1:04:59group. Okay, just this people be like
1:05:02people are either going to accept you or
1:05:03deny you based on just some arbitrary
1:05:05criteria whatever it was
1:05:06>> even that the people who you've never
1:05:09met. Okay, these were strangers people
1:05:10had never met before. You'd never meet
1:05:12again. Tasks that you were doing within
1:05:14this group that didn't matter if you
1:05:17were excluded or included like had a had
1:05:20an effect on how you felt about yourself
1:05:22in that situation.
1:05:23>> Yeah.
1:05:23>> Like that's how ingrained it is and you
1:05:25could tell your status from that. If you
1:05:27told them if you told the people that
1:05:28this was just random like your status is
1:05:30just decided randomly, it didn't matter.
1:05:32But if you said there's other people
1:05:33judging you based on this, people you
1:05:34didn't know again would never interact
1:05:37with again, doing tasks you never that
1:05:39don't mean anything. That's how innate
1:05:41it is.
1:05:41>> It's so funny. So, have you ever have
1:05:43you ever like volunteered for a psych
1:05:45study?
1:05:45>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:46>> Yeah. So, I used to do it in college a
1:05:47lot and uh
1:05:48>> I would do anything for 10 bucks back
1:05:49then.
1:05:50>> Exactly. Exactly. And I remember I used
1:05:52to go in and and it was it was always
1:05:54really funny because Yeah. They they
1:05:55just put you in a room of strangers. You
1:05:57have no idea what you're there for. You
1:05:58have no idea what you're going to do.
1:06:00like they they come in and they ask you
1:06:01to do like some very random thing.
1:06:03>> And I'm just I'm just thinking back and
1:06:05and imagining like walking into that
1:06:08room with like
1:06:09>> five or 10 other people
1:06:10>> and then having the the researcher just
1:06:12look at me and be like, "Who here wants
1:06:14Mark to stay?" And like nobody raises
1:06:16their hand. I would be so [ __ ]
1:06:18pissed. I would be like, [laughter]
1:06:19"Fuck all you people.
1:06:21>> [ __ ] you. Who do you think you are?"
1:06:23Right. And it it could be who cares what
1:06:26the reason is for, right? Like it's just
1:06:27imagining that happening. Yeah.
1:06:30>> is enough to like
1:06:33imagine the emotion that would come up.
1:06:35>> Importantly uh in these studies too what
1:06:37they found is that it's really the
1:06:39exclusion. It's this loss aversion going
1:06:41on again. Okay. Because when the same
1:06:44was true when you were like included in
1:06:45the group they like they found that the
1:06:47people who yeah oh yeah you were
1:06:48accepted into the group and you're good.
1:06:50They felt fine. They're like okay fine
1:06:52whatever. It's when you're excluded that
1:06:53the pain really came in that that was
1:06:55measurable and they got a measurable
1:06:57response from that. that people would
1:06:58just felt worse about themselves. That
1:07:00sociometer really took a hit only during
1:07:03the exclusions. It's a threat detection
1:07:04system. It's not a bonus reward system
1:07:07or anything like that. You don't get to
1:07:08feel good because you get included. You
1:07:10only feel bad because you're excluded.
1:07:12It's it's loss aversion is what it is.
1:07:14And but it's at the social level. Losing
1:07:16social status is really the measure that
1:07:19that hurts the most.
1:07:20>> You know what this reminds me of? You
1:07:22didn't go out to many nightclubs, did
1:07:24you? When you
1:07:24>> I was I was not a clubber.
1:07:25>> Good. Good for you. Good for you.
1:07:27Biggest waste of [ __ ] time and money
1:07:29[laughter]
1:07:30>> ever. I went to way too many clubs and a
1:07:32lot of nightclubs, especially in like
1:07:34like big cities like New York and
1:07:36London. Um they have a setup where it's
1:07:38like you have the VIP section, right,
1:07:40where you have to pay a ridiculous
1:07:42amount of money to basically sit at a
1:07:44table behind a velvet rope.
1:07:47>> Uh where it's just as loud and shitty as
1:07:49the people on the other side.
1:07:50>> It's completely arbitrary. And it was
1:07:53funny because I remember when I was
1:07:54young and broke and I used to go out the
1:07:56clubs all the time, you know, I would
1:07:58sit there. I'd be like one of the the
1:08:00cattle herd like crammed into the middle
1:08:02of the bar waiting 20 minutes to get a
1:08:04drink. And I would I would look over at
1:08:06the VIP area, you know, they all have
1:08:08their own waitresses and the waitresses
1:08:09are super hot and there's like champagne
1:08:11bottles and sparklers and everything.
1:08:13And I'd be like, man, it it must be so
1:08:15cool to be in there. Like it'd be so
1:08:17much nicer, so much easier. You could
1:08:19like talk to people. you can meet a
1:08:21bunch of girls. And I used to think that
1:08:23for years in my early 20s and then I
1:08:24remember once I got a little bit older
1:08:26and I got some money. Um I went out to a
1:08:28couple clubs and I bought VIP tables for
1:08:31me and my friends and I just remember
1:08:33sitting there and being like this is it.
1:08:35This is so dumb.
1:08:36>> This is so [ __ ] stupid. I just wasted
1:08:39so much money for nothing. For nothing.
1:08:41>> Exly. Yeah. So getting included had
1:08:43almost zero benefit.
1:08:44>> Zero benefit. Zero benefit.
1:08:45>> Being excluded hurt like hell.
1:08:47>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly the
1:08:49sociometer's uh uh mechanism there.
1:08:51Yeah. And again, it just comes back to
1:08:53that whole loss aversion thing like
1:08:54losing status
1:08:56>> with our evolutionarily ancient brains
1:08:58that we have
1:09:00>> that signal literal death at one point
1:09:02in our evolutionary past, right?
1:09:04>> Yeah.
1:09:04>> It's just being
1:09:06>> kind of hijacked now uh in a lot of
1:09:09these situations. That's a perfect
1:09:10example of when it's being hijacked in a
1:09:12way that's uh screwing you over,
1:09:14basically. And there's a lot of places
1:09:15that will mess with you, you know,
1:09:18different status games and um you know,
1:09:21airlines do this, right, with their
1:09:23statuses and points and you know, do you
1:09:25get the premium economy seat or did you
1:09:26get a free upgrade to like the you know,
1:09:28special extra leg room seat, you know,
1:09:31and it's and people love it. It really
1:09:33taps into something extremely primal in
1:09:35us.
1:09:36>> Yeah. Yeah, it does. Even if it's super
1:09:38arbitrary like you're saying.
1:09:39>> Yeah.
1:09:39>> So, yeah, there's another thing too like
1:09:41you've kind of been hinting at. can't
1:09:42really talk yourself out of this. You
1:09:44can't reason your way out. You can't if
1:09:46you even if you know about it, it really
1:09:48doesn't change a whole lot. One of these
1:09:50studies that they did as well was uh
1:09:53they had participants, they would speak
1:09:54into a microphone and just talk about
1:09:56themselves. And then they received
1:09:58feedback from a quote unquote stranger.
1:10:00It was just the the the researchers
1:10:02basically that either accepted or
1:10:04rejected their stories like this was a
1:10:05good story, this wasn't a bad story that
1:10:06you just told about yourself, right? the
1:10:08rejected participants they would dismiss
1:10:11these impressions they would whatever
1:10:13these people I don't care about these
1:10:15people doesn't matter somebody I don't
1:10:17know but when they measured their their
1:10:19their sociometer status kind of thing
1:10:21how they felt about themselves how they
1:10:22felt about themselves later it actually
1:10:24still went down no matter what even if
1:10:26you had that selft talk like we always
1:10:28say oh just you know screw them they
1:10:29don't know what they're talking about
1:10:30>> it's like the comment section
1:10:31>> it's yeah the comment section
1:10:33>> dude
1:10:33>> it digs at you doesn't it still digs at
1:10:35you
1:10:35>> it's what [laughter]
1:10:37it's So funny cuz it's like I know it
1:10:39doesn't matter but it's like it's still
1:10:41it's still it just sucks.
1:10:42>> Yeah. Yeah. And like good feedback
1:10:45you're like oh that's that was nice.
1:10:46>> Yeah. Exactly. Like there'll be hundreds
1:10:47and hundreds of comments
1:10:48>> but you'll hang on to that one.
1:10:49>> Right. And then one person like makes
1:10:50fun of my hair or my shoes or something
1:10:52and I'm like oh [ __ ] you Joey Baloney
1:10:56648.
1:10:57>> Right.
1:10:58>> What do you know?
1:10:58>> Yeah. People that you don't know will
1:11:00never interact with again and arbitrary
1:11:02standards. Yeah.
1:11:03>> Yep. [ __ ] mamalian brain can't get
1:11:06away from it. Yeah. No. Well, I Exactly.
1:11:09You know, when when somebody rejects us
1:11:11for something completely arbitrary,
1:11:13right? Like, and we're not actually
1:11:14losing it. You know, it's like we lose a
1:11:16golf game or we lose, you know, uh Joe
1:11:19Blow next to us that can carry a bigger
1:11:21rock or, you know, run faster than us.
1:11:23Like, why do we feel so bad? Like, what
1:11:25is actually being harmed? It was funny
1:11:27because when you said that, the first
1:11:28thing that came to my mind was the ego.
1:11:30And it's interesting because if you
1:11:32actually go back to Freud's theory, you
1:11:35know, we've done a whole episode on on
1:11:38the ego unsolved, people can can go back
1:11:40and listen to it. Um the TLDDR is that
1:11:43uh Freud's original theory about the ego
1:11:45has just been completely butchered over
1:11:47the years and and people have a very
1:11:49almost like a cartoonish understanding
1:11:51of what what the ego is and the purpose
1:11:54it serves us psychologically. The real
1:11:56understanding of the ego, the Freud's
1:11:58like actual explanation of what the ego
1:12:00is ties in perfectly with the sociometer
1:12:03theory, right? Like Freud's argument is
1:12:06that we have two primary
1:12:08>> incentives in our lives. One is our
1:12:11instinctual urges and just base drives.
1:12:15And then one is the culture and social
1:12:18influence around us, right? We want to
1:12:21satisfy our urges and needs, but we also
1:12:24want people to approve of us, people to
1:12:27like us, to have social status, to fit
1:12:29into cultural norms, social norms to be
1:12:32seen, you know, to be respected and
1:12:33admired and all those things. And the
1:12:35ego is the self-defin that balances
1:12:39those two things. The ego is it is the
1:12:42the bundle of narratives we tell about
1:12:44ourselves that exists to help us both
1:12:48get our our fundamental needs met and
1:12:50and satisfy our urges but also do it in
1:12:53a way that doesn't make everybody hate
1:12:55us, doesn't get us kicked out of the
1:12:56tribe.
1:12:57>> Yeah. I had I had a psychology professor
1:12:59explained it really well one time, I
1:13:01think. So we try those. You have your
1:13:03urges and your your base desires and
1:13:05everything like that and you have
1:13:06society's expectations on top of you and
1:13:08then the the ego comes in and says,
1:13:09"Wait, I have a plan."
1:13:11>> Like I thought that was a really good
1:13:12way to [laughter] to to say what the ego
1:13:14is.
1:13:14>> I got it, guys.
1:13:15>> I got this. Yeah. Yeah.
1:13:17>> But what's interesting about the ego is
1:13:18that it it is we protect it as if it's
1:13:22part of ourselves, right? Like it and
1:13:25when the ego is threatened or attacked,
1:13:27we feel the same physiological response
1:13:29that we do if our body is threatened or
1:13:31attacked. And so when we talk about
1:13:33failure, failure of social status,
1:13:35failure of like losing the respect and
1:13:37admiration of others, it very much is a
1:13:40threat to the ego, right? Because it is
1:13:42a threat to our self-standing of how we
1:13:44feel about ourselves and um and how we
1:13:48see ourselves. And sure enough, you see
1:13:50this in the research as well, like
1:13:51people will experience the pain of
1:13:53failure even when they're alone by
1:13:55themselves. Even when nobody's around
1:13:57and nobody can see what happened or what
1:14:00they're doing, right? Like we still even
1:14:01if you're alone in your room trying to
1:14:03do a thing that you think is important,
1:14:05when you fail at it, you're going to
1:14:06feel like a loser. And the reason is is
1:14:09because that sociometer, it doesn't turn
1:14:11off when you're by yourself. It still
1:14:14exists within you and you are always
1:14:17using it to gauge what your relative
1:14:19social status is to other people. And
1:14:22even when you are doing things by
1:14:24yourself, you are still measuring your
1:14:26ability to do those things against that
1:14:28sociometer of like the standard that you
1:14:30have set for yourself based on the
1:14:33people around you, based on society at
1:14:34large, based on whatever culture you
1:14:36exist within. Now, there's a word here
1:14:39that we've been dancing around and and
1:14:43I've intentionally wanted to dance
1:14:44around it, and that is self-esteem.
1:14:46Like, another way to think about what
1:14:48this internal sociometer is is
1:14:50self-esteem.
1:14:52>> I mean, one day we'll do an episode on
1:14:53self-esteem.
1:14:54>> We definitely should. and and and we
1:14:55will talk about all the ways that it it
1:14:57got butchered and mangled over the
1:14:59decades, but it it is I think most
1:15:02people conceptualize self-esteem as
1:15:05something that exists independently and
1:15:07internally on your own, right? Like when
1:15:10people say, "Oh, you just need to have
1:15:12better self-esteem." Or like, "Oh, we
1:15:13just need to improve her self-esteem."
1:15:15It is often said in a way that if you
1:15:19just felt good by yourself
1:15:22on your own,
1:15:23>> Yes. that everything would be fine. But
1:15:25the truth is is that self-esteem is
1:15:27intimately connected to how you're seen
1:15:30by others, right? Because ultimately the
1:15:32way you feel about yourself is a
1:15:34response to how you predict other people
1:15:37are going to feel about you based on
1:15:39what you can do. So we're tying together
1:15:41a whole bundle of psychological concepts
1:15:44here. But the point is is that failure
1:15:47hurts regardless of whether you actually
1:15:50lost something or not. Whether it's a
1:15:52tangible thing you you you lost or just
1:15:55some abstract arbitrary measurement that
1:15:58you you failed to live up to. It hurts
1:16:01whether you agree with the people
1:16:03judging you or not. It hurts whether
1:16:07you're even with other people or not.
1:16:10And it hurts whether it even makes sense
1:16:12or not. And like you said, the reason it
1:16:15hurts in all these circumstances is
1:16:16because it identified as a threat
1:16:19prevention system, as a way to protect
1:16:21yourself and to keep you in good graces
1:16:24with the people around you and to keep
1:16:26you competent and living up to
1:16:27expectations that other people set for
1:16:30you and that you've set for yourself. We
1:16:32still haven't defined failure yet. And a
1:16:33lot of that is because it doesn't really
1:16:35matter what the definition of failure
1:16:37is. If you lost something, either
1:16:39tangible or abstract, it's going to feel
1:16:42bad. No matter what, you could be
1:16:44[ __ ] Steve Jobs and it's and you wake
1:16:47up, it's going to feel shitty, right?
1:16:49Warren Buffett wakes up, sees he lost a
1:16:51bunch of money. It's going to feel
1:16:53really shitty and it's going to feel
1:16:54worse
1:16:55>> than making that same amount of money.
1:16:57It doesn't matter who you are, what
1:16:59situation you're in, how smart you are,
1:17:01how many ways you rationalize the
1:17:03importance of the failure, how many
1:17:04lessons you gain from the failure,
1:17:06>> it is going to suck always, all the
1:17:09time.
1:17:11It's just fascinating. I I don't know.
1:17:14It's kind of sick. Yeah, it's cruel.
1:17:16>> Yeah, it's really cruel. Like our our
1:17:19minds are just set up to be kind of
1:17:20cruel to ourselves and it we we create
1:17:23these egos and then these egos are what
1:17:26is reflecting back on us that we that
1:17:29hurts us too. Like it's the target of
1:17:31our pain, but it's also our own
1:17:32creation.
1:17:32>> And it is the whole purpose of the ego
1:17:35is to be hurt.
1:17:36>> Right. Right. Because by being hurt, the
1:17:39ego is signaling to us that our
1:17:41livelihood is under threat. Right? So we
1:17:43construct our egos. We create all these
1:17:44narratives about who we are and what we
1:17:46can do and who's going to like us and
1:17:47who's not going to like us so that all
1:17:50those narratives can fail us
1:17:52>> and be threatened so that we can get
1:17:55really upset and anxious and freak out
1:17:58so that we behave in more adaptable ways
1:18:00that promote our survival. And I guess
1:18:02there's there's one of two ways you
1:18:03could look at that. Maybe I'm getting
1:18:04ahead of myself here, but that could
1:18:06either be the best realization you have
1:18:08of this whole episode. [laughter]
1:18:09>> Yes.
1:18:10>> Or the worst, right? Depending on how
1:18:12you look at that.
1:18:13>> Yes. You have to define yourself in some
1:18:15way or another, right? We we covered
1:18:17that in the ego episode. Like you you
1:18:19have to pick some self-defin
1:18:23>> and whatever self- definition you choose
1:18:26is going to be the definition that fails
1:18:27at some point. And it is that failure
1:18:29that is evolutionarily useful because as
1:18:31soon as it fails that is what motivates
1:18:34you to change your behavior and act
1:18:36differently in the future which is of
1:18:38course your way of learning right so the
1:18:41learning is generally it's going to
1:18:43happen you know unless there are times
1:18:45where you can kind of live in denial
1:18:48sure you know Freud had his defense
1:18:49mechanisms which I think in many ways
1:18:52prevented learning I think they were
1:18:54defined in such a way that it was like
1:18:56there were ways that people protected
1:18:57their ego in a way that prevented them
1:18:59from having to learn. Right? So, it's
1:19:00like you you develop a strong sense of
1:19:03denial uh or you project your own flaws
1:19:06onto other people as a way to protect
1:19:08your ego and because you're protecting
1:19:09your ego, your e ego never gets harmed.
1:19:11And because it never gets harmed, you
1:19:12never have to learn and grow and develop
1:19:14a new self- definitionf. This comes back
1:19:16to the fact that it's just like growth
1:19:19is fundamentally
1:19:21rooted in pain. Failure is inevitable.
1:19:23No matter how you define your goals,
1:19:26your aims, your identity, you are
1:19:28choosing the future ways in which you
1:19:31are going to fail. And so the game is
1:19:32not necessarily learning from failure
1:19:35because as long as you're just honest
1:19:36about failure, that's going to happen
1:19:37anyway. The game is not avoiding failure
1:19:41because that's impossible. The game is
1:19:44is choosing the right goals and identity
1:19:48so that you have good failures.
1:19:50>> So that pain is worth it.
1:19:51>> Yeah.
1:19:52>> Okay. Right? So, a very crude example.
1:19:56>> If I define myself as uh a family man,
1:20:01>> right? That is a self-defin that's I'm
1:20:04going to fail at at some point.
1:20:05>> Yeah.
1:20:05>> And each time I fail at that, I'm
1:20:07probably going going to become better in
1:20:10my relationships, become more loving,
1:20:11better with intimacy, better with
1:20:13communication, and become a better
1:20:14family man. If I define myself as a meth
1:20:17head, I'm setting myself up for a series
1:20:19of failures that are like not going to
1:20:20help me very much.
1:20:22>> Right. I'm being very inefficient in
1:20:25sourcing meth in downtown LA right now.
1:20:27Right. Yeah. [laughter]
1:20:29Whereas whereas if you define yourself
1:20:30as a family man, that pain is very
1:20:33informative and will guide you along the
1:20:34way into becoming closer in line with
1:20:37your values or what you actually want to
1:20:39be and something that's very chosen and
1:20:41intentional.
1:20:41>> Correct. Okay. Before we can even talk
1:20:44about growing from failure,
1:20:46>> which we will talk about that towards
1:20:48the end of the episode,
1:20:49>> we have to talk about what are we how
1:20:52are we defining ourselves because the
1:20:54way we define ourselves defines what our
1:20:56failures are going to be.
1:20:58>> Right. Right.
1:20:58>> I'm not a golfer, so I don't give a [ __ ]
1:21:01if I miss a par putt.
1:21:03>> Tiger Woods probably gives a lot of
1:21:05shits if he misses a par putt. Right. So
1:21:07for me, it's not a failure. I don't
1:21:09care.
1:21:10>> Right. Tiger Woods. It's like it
1:21:13probably feels life life or death to him
1:21:15at certain points.
1:21:16>> Yeah.
1:21:17>> I brought this up several times in the
1:21:18change episode.
1:21:20I kept saying, you know, pain is a great
1:21:22teacher.
1:21:22>> Mhm.
1:21:23>> And I think this is a little bit where
1:21:25rubber hits the road with it.
1:21:27>> Um pay attention to what what's causing
1:21:29you pain.
1:21:30>> And if you like dig underneath of it, I
1:21:32think we're going to talk about this a
1:21:33lot. I'm going for it, but if you dig
1:21:34underneath of that, is that pain worth
1:21:36it? Is that pain really what like the
1:21:38the family man versus the methhead,
1:21:40right? Which one of those pains is a
1:21:41better pain to have?
1:21:42>> Yes.
1:21:42>> Like I think that's what I was rather
1:21:44fail at.
1:21:44>> That's kind of what I was trying to get
1:21:45at in the change episode. Like pain is a
1:21:47great teacher. Like listen to it. Don't
1:21:48don't avoid it.
1:21:49>> Cuz the chapter of my book is called
1:21:51failure is the way forward.
1:21:53>> And this is why that just feels very
1:21:56surface level, you know, at this point
1:21:58because it's Yeah, it is the way
1:21:59forward, but it's it's the way forward
1:22:02for what, right?
1:22:03>> Ah, okay. Like if if you are failing at
1:22:06something that is a waste of your time,
1:22:08>> it's probably good you're failing. You
1:22:10probably don't want to move forward. And
1:22:11you see this a lot. Like we're going to
1:22:13talk about quitting later and and what
1:22:15the difference is between quitting being
1:22:17a success and quitting something being a
1:22:19failure. And I think a lot of it has to
1:22:21do with understanding like is something
1:22:23worth failing at? Is something worth
1:22:27pursuing in the first place? Because if
1:22:29it's not worth pursuing in the first
1:22:31place, then failure like failing at that
1:22:33thing is a good thing. You should I
1:22:36should hope that I'm not very good at
1:22:38being a meth addict.
1:22:39>> Okay.
1:22:41>> I would hope so, too.
1:22:42>> Unfortunately, I'm prodigious at
1:22:44acquiring [laughter] meth on the streets
1:22:45of LA.
1:22:46>> Yeah. Yeah. I just appear to be like uh
1:22:49Isaac Newton of uh [laughter]
1:22:52>> And yet here you are.
1:22:53>> And yet here I am talking to you.
1:22:55>> Yeah. What are some good ways that you
1:22:58define failure for yourself throughout
1:23:00your life
1:23:01>> and what are some bad ways?
1:23:03>> Just professionally speaking, I' if I've
1:23:05like I guess I haven't been fired from
1:23:07really any jobs that I think of, but
1:23:09I've definitely failed. [laughter] Yeah.
1:23:11Right.
1:23:14>> We'll talk about that. Um
1:23:16>> but when I have like I've gone into
1:23:17something and I didn't it just didn't
1:23:18work or I quit, you know, I left grad
1:23:20school. Like I've talked about that
1:23:21plenty of times before. I never saw that
1:23:23as a failure. I did really see that as
1:23:25oh uh the pain I was experiencing during
1:23:28that was pain I really didn't want so
1:23:30I'm getting the hell out. Yeah. So I
1:23:31think that was a healthy way to see it.
1:23:33Every time that I have though like an
1:23:35unhealthy way to see it has always been
1:23:37it's someone else's standard or someone
1:23:40else's definition that I've not lived up
1:23:43to and I probably felt that sting that
1:23:45we're talking about the sociometer
1:23:47sting. Yeah.
1:23:48>> And not really paid attention to why and
1:23:50just felt bad and just externalized all
1:23:52of it. thought that I was just a failure
1:23:54and like how could I live up to this
1:23:56that the other thing. It was always some
1:23:58external standard usually.
1:23:59>> Yeah.
1:24:00>> Um that that I was failing to live up
1:24:02to. I think that's a big difference for
1:24:04me anyway. I don't know.
1:24:05>> I definitely relate to that. I when I
1:24:07think about it, I I think about it like
1:24:08my early dating and relationships. like
1:24:10I very much it was like a very it was
1:24:13very superficial and that like I viewed
1:24:16my success at dating really just in
1:24:18terms of like how many
1:24:20>> women I went out with and how many I
1:24:22hooked up with. And what eventually
1:24:23happened and I I wrote about this in my
1:24:25dating book many years ago. Um what
1:24:27eventually happened is I realized that
1:24:28like I was
1:24:30>> putting so much time and effort into
1:24:31like pursuing women that I didn't even
1:24:33actually enjoy being around. It was
1:24:35because of what you're saying. And it's
1:24:36like I had I had kind of downloaded this
1:24:38this lame cultural script of like what a
1:24:41successful dating life as a young man
1:24:43was and I was trying to live up to that
1:24:46regardless of how much I actually
1:24:48enjoyed the company of the women I was
1:24:50seeing. And
1:24:52>> um and as soon as I flipped the the
1:24:55standard of success from I guess hooking
1:24:58up with lots of girls to like being
1:25:01happy and enjoying the women I spend
1:25:03time with. It completely changed
1:25:06everything, right? And then then it it
1:25:08changed the the nature of the failure,
1:25:10right? So it was like before if I went
1:25:12on a date with a woman
1:25:14>> and she didn't call me back, that felt
1:25:16like a catastrophic
1:25:19evaluation of my worth as as an
1:25:21individual. Whereas like when I ch
1:25:24shifted the metric to just like having a
1:25:27happy good relationship with somebody um
1:25:30and I went on a date with a woman and
1:25:31she didn't call me back, it was like oh
1:25:33well I guess we wouldn't have been happy
1:25:35together.
1:25:36>> Good thing she didn't call me back,
1:25:38right? Like it's no longer a failure.
1:25:41Like texting her a million times and
1:25:43like manipulating her to go back out
1:25:45with me would have been the failure
1:25:46because it would have made us both
1:25:47miserable,
1:25:48>> right? And some people now some people
1:25:49would say, "Oh, you're diluting yourself
1:25:51into, you know, you're inflating your
1:25:52own ego or whatever in that you're
1:25:54diluting yourself." Well, you're
1:25:55diluting yourself either way really,
1:25:57right? There's a delusion on either
1:25:59direction of
1:26:00>> every vector. You [laughter] may as well
1:26:02choose the one where it's telling you a
1:26:03better story and and giving you a better
1:26:05outcome and is aligned with what you
1:26:06actually want, not what other people are
1:26:09telling you. And all of those arbitrary
1:26:11standards that you're putting on
1:26:12yourself, they just make yourself
1:26:13miserable.
1:26:14>> Yeah. Yeah. And it's I think the the
1:26:16point and that came up in the research
1:26:17too is that you're going to feel bad
1:26:19when other people judge you whether you
1:26:22agree with them or not,
1:26:23>> whether you even care about them or not.
1:26:26It's just going to feel bad no matter
1:26:27what. So, you might as well pick the
1:26:29thing that's going to make you happy
1:26:30anyway, right? Like,
1:26:32>> you're going to get criticized no matter
1:26:33what you do. So, you might as well do
1:26:36what's best for you.
1:26:37>> Yeah.
1:26:37>> No, that's totally true. I guess I I get
1:26:39that. Um, I don't know if I I don't get
1:26:41a lot of overt signals uh like from my
1:26:44family, you know, like I'm not I'm not
1:26:46married. I'm in my 40s. I'm not married.
1:26:47I don't have kids and all that kind of
1:26:48stuff. And I come from pretty
1:26:49traditional family.
1:26:51>> Newly single ladies.
1:26:53>> Well, talk about a failure. [laughter]
1:26:57>> Well, I don't know if we have time in
1:26:59this podcast.
1:27:00>> That's another episode. [laughter]
1:27:01That's another episode. I see that, too,
1:27:03cuz I will tell myself I'm like, "Well,
1:27:04I don't care what they think." And it's
1:27:05like, I actually do. You do. But when I
1:27:08sit down and think about it, I'm like,
1:27:09"No, but I'm still okay." Even though
1:27:11that that it kind of gets at me a little
1:27:13bit. I'm like, I'm still okay with like
1:27:15my choices and the way I've done this.
1:27:17And
1:27:18>> yeah, it's it's funny cuz yeah, it it
1:27:20never things like that. They never stop
1:27:22getting to you. It's like the comments,
1:27:24right? Like I get asked all the time by
1:27:26younger influencers, creators. They're
1:27:28like, "When do you stop caring about?"
1:27:29I'm like, "You never stop."
1:27:30>> Yeah.
1:27:31>> You just get better at it. It's like
1:27:32public speaking, right? You never stop
1:27:34being nervous before you go speak in
1:27:36front of an audience. It doesn't bother
1:27:38you as much as time goes on. Like you
1:27:40get desensitized to it like that. I
1:27:42think that's [clears throat] more of
1:27:43what happens.
1:27:44>> Yeah. I think that's where I'm at with
1:27:45it, too. Yeah.
1:27:45>> Yeah.
1:27:46>> Yeah.
1:27:46>> Well, believe it or not, we're going to
1:27:48go even deeper on this.
1:27:51>> Which is way deeper than I think anybody
1:27:53asked for when they started this this
1:27:55episode. But, um,
1:27:56>> this is why we're here.
1:27:57>> Let's get weird. [laughter]
1:27:59>> We go way too deep and get weird. Yeah.
1:28:02Uh so the in the next chapter I what I'd
1:28:04like listeners to do is is think about
1:28:07one of the largest failures that they
1:28:09have experienced in the last few years
1:28:12>> and and take a moment and think about
1:28:14what are what are the assumptions or or
1:28:16yard sticks that they are using to
1:28:19measure that failure like what what are
1:28:21what's the underlying assumption or
1:28:23value that defines that failure? In many
1:28:26cases, I think people don't realize that
1:28:30>> they didn't actually accept the terms uh
1:28:34of of their failure. Like they just kind
1:28:36of in
1:28:37>> inherited it from the people around
1:28:39them. So that's the first thing I want
1:28:40them to do. But then I want them as we
1:28:42go into the next chapter and we start
1:28:45talking a little bit more deeply about
1:28:47this identity stuff and um and how we're
1:28:51measuring ourselves and the ego and
1:28:55where all of this stuff comes from in
1:28:56the first place and does any of it
1:28:58matter? I want them to keep keep that in
1:29:01mind as we work through it. So, as you
1:29:03know, for many months, we've been joking
1:29:05about doing an episode on religion,
1:29:08religion solved.
1:29:09>> And surprisingly, a lot of people in the
1:29:11audience have encouraged us to do it.
1:29:13So,
1:29:14>> this next chapter, it's going to be
1:29:15we're going to dip our toe in the water,
1:29:16and we're we're not going to get
1:29:18religious, but we are going to use two
1:29:20of the world's most prominent religions
1:29:22as a way of of investigating how we
1:29:26define failure and how we define
1:29:28ourselves in the first place. Hold that
1:29:31thought. We've got a quick message from
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1:32:06So we have now managed to get 2 hours
1:32:09into a podcast about failure without
1:32:12actually defining failure. And there
1:32:14there is actually a very good reason for
1:32:15this which is that failure is completely
1:32:17relative. It's failure compared to what
1:32:21right what is the sta standard or
1:32:23expectation that you're setting that is
1:32:25defining your failure. So it it is
1:32:27actually difficult to define failure
1:32:29without first looking at the standards
1:32:32and expectations we set for ourselves.
1:32:35And it turns out that those standards
1:32:36and expectations are very deeply linked
1:32:39with how we see who we are. And the best
1:32:42vehicle to explain this phenomenon and
1:32:46this experience that we all have, I
1:32:48actually think is one of the most
1:32:51popular religions in the world, which is
1:32:52Buddhism. I'm going to tell briefly the
1:32:55the story of the Buddha. Again, I'm
1:32:57going to tell it with a little bit of a
1:32:59twist in a way that I think will help us
1:33:01understand failure and loss on on a a
1:33:04deeper, more profound level. So for
1:33:07people who don't know, the Buddha was
1:33:09born a prince to a very wealthy family.
1:33:12And the Buddha's father was apparently a
1:33:15very bold and ambitious man. And when
1:33:17his son was born, he decided that he
1:33:20wanted to create an environment that his
1:33:22son would never know lack, would never
1:33:25know pain, would never know loss, would
1:33:27never know failure. And so he contrived
1:33:30everything in his son's environment to
1:33:32fulfill every wish, every desire. So
1:33:36supposedly, as the myth goes, as the
1:33:37Buddha grew up, he never wanted for
1:33:40anything. Anything he wanted at any
1:33:42time, it was immediately given to him.
1:33:44And he never had to deal with any
1:33:45problem. He never had to take
1:33:47responsibility for any struggle, any
1:33:50outcome. Everything was just easy peasy,
1:33:54limb breezy. Now, interestingly, this
1:33:56became very dissatisfying for him. I
1:33:58think he probably intuited once he
1:34:00became an adult that this was kind of an
1:34:02empty life. like it was just this
1:34:04hydonic treadmill of indulgences and and
1:34:07ever escalating novelty. And at a
1:34:10certain point he decided that he wanted
1:34:12to actually experience the world. And so
1:34:15late one night he snuck out of the
1:34:16palace and he encounters four different
1:34:18people that all all of them shock him.
1:34:20So the first one is is an aging and
1:34:22withered old man. He had never seen
1:34:25somebody old before and this kind of
1:34:28freaked him out. The second thing he saw
1:34:29was a a deeply sick person, someone
1:34:32riddled with disease and deeply
1:34:34suffering because of it. The third thing
1:34:36he saw was a corpse on the side of the
1:34:38road. He had never seen anybody who was
1:34:40dead before. And then the last thing he
1:34:42saw was a wandering aesthetic. Uh which
1:34:45was at the time it was a monk that gave
1:34:47away all possessions and just kind of
1:34:48wandered around. Took took a vow of
1:34:50poverty I suppose. Now all these things
1:34:53completely shocked him. like he had
1:34:54never been exposed to anything like this
1:34:56in his life. And it kind of gave him a
1:34:59wakeup call and he realized, you know
1:35:00what? I got to get out into the world. I
1:35:03need to learn and understand everything
1:35:05that's going on that I I haven't been
1:35:07exposed to before. So soon after, he
1:35:09planned to exit the palace for good. He
1:35:11had a wife and a child. He left them in
1:35:14the middle of the night without saying
1:35:15goodbye to them. And he decided to
1:35:18wander the wilderness as an aesthetic
1:35:21himself. He gave up all possessions. He
1:35:24took a vow of poverty. He supposedly
1:35:27lived on like a single peanut each day.
1:35:30He basically
1:35:32intensely suffered intentionally for an
1:35:36extended period of time. Intentionally
1:35:38suffering isn't really satisfying
1:35:40either. It's just kind of another form
1:35:42of indulgence just, you know, with a
1:35:44different flavor, I suppose. And so
1:35:47eventually he came to the conclusion
1:35:48that like this wasn't really leading
1:35:50anywhere either. And so that's when he
1:35:52went and sat underneath the Bodhi tree
1:35:54and he decided that he was not going to
1:35:55get up until he had a better idea and
1:35:58that's when he became enlightened. I
1:36:00find this story interesting because
1:36:01earlier we were talking about kind of
1:36:03the Hegelian dialectic, the the thesis,
1:36:06the antithesis, the synthesis. I think
1:36:08we could look at the Buddhist story of
1:36:10kind of a an example of that dialectic
1:36:12at work, right? So you have this this
1:36:15prince who's born into a life of luxury.
1:36:17He has zero problems, zero failures,
1:36:20right? That's kind of our our natural
1:36:22instinct is to avoid any loss or
1:36:24failure. That is not satisfying because
1:36:26you don't grow. You don't have
1:36:28accountability for anything. You don't
1:36:30have any repercussions for anything. You
1:36:31never have to change. And that's not
1:36:33living. That's not a life. Right? So he
1:36:36becomes dissatisfied with that. And then
1:36:37he goes to the other extreme which is he
1:36:39seeks out failure. He seeks out pain. He
1:36:41seeks out loss. and he tries to indulge
1:36:45and optimize that suffering uh to to
1:36:49achieve some some degree of
1:36:50enlightenment or or self-empowerment and
1:36:53he realizes that too is a dead end that
1:36:56is just another form of self-indulgence
1:36:58and it is also an unhealthy relationship
1:37:01with failure and loss and so the
1:37:03synthesis that he arrives at I guess you
1:37:05could say under the bodhic tree is that
1:37:08everything is a sense of loss everything
1:37:12is an eventual failure because the
1:37:15moment you attach yourself to any
1:37:18thought, any desire, any identification,
1:37:22you are defining the terms of your
1:37:24future failure because nothing lasts.
1:37:27And because nothing lasts, anything that
1:37:29you attach yourself to is destined to
1:37:32fail you at some point. From a Buddhist
1:37:34perspective, every time you say I am,
1:37:36and then finish the sentence, you are
1:37:39committing a a very subtle act of self
1:37:41harm because you are setting the
1:37:42standards and expectations by which
1:37:44you're going to measure yourself. And by
1:37:45definition, every measurement and
1:37:47standard you set for yourself is one day
1:37:48going to fail you. So as soon as you
1:37:51define yourself in any way, shape or
1:37:53form, you are also defining the terms of
1:37:55your future failures. So in this sense,
1:37:57failure is not only inevitable, it is a
1:38:02fundamental part of our consciousness
1:38:05and the way we experience the world. Now
1:38:08the Buddhist response to this is that
1:38:11you just shouldn't define yourself at
1:38:12all. That you should let go of all
1:38:14attachments, all standards, all
1:38:16expectations. And this is a pretty
1:38:19radical idea. I mean this is this
1:38:21ultimately is the realization that the
1:38:23Buddha came to sitting underneath the
1:38:25bodhic tree and became the kind of the
1:38:26foundational premise of the philosophy
1:38:30of Buddhism. But I do think there is a
1:38:31lot of wisdom in that of at least
1:38:34defining yourself extremely loosely and
1:38:36not being too invested or too attached
1:38:39to any single definition of self.
1:38:42Because the more invested you are in any
1:38:44definition of self, the more you bank
1:38:45your self-esteem or how you feel about
1:38:47yourself on any single narrow
1:38:49definition, the more vulnerable you're
1:38:51making yourself for when the eventual
1:38:53failures do occur. I'm not really going
1:38:56to recommend that everybody goes full
1:38:58Buddhist [laughter]
1:39:00and just like sits in a corner and
1:39:02stares at a wall and tries to let go,
1:39:04relinquish every single form of
1:39:06identification and attachment in their
1:39:07lives. I don't think that's necessarily
1:39:11practical in 2026, but I do think it's
1:39:14an incredibly important principle to
1:39:17understand.
1:39:18And I think as a a a mental exercise, it
1:39:22is useful for people to kind of explore
1:39:25this idea that a lot of their self-defin
1:39:28and a lot of the standards and
1:39:30expectations that they've invited into
1:39:32their lives are completely arbitrary,
1:39:34are completely self-defined, and don't
1:39:36necessarily need to exist. Like you can
1:39:39kind of just stop measuring yourself in
1:39:41certain ways technically whenever you
1:39:43want.
1:39:44>> Right. Okay. So, you're advocating for
1:39:46Buddhism light.
1:39:47>> Yes. It kind of sounds like a diet
1:39:48Buddhism.
1:39:49>> So this kind of leads to the four noble
1:39:51truths of Bu Bu Buddhism, right? Like
1:39:53the first noble truth being life is
1:39:54suffering or some sort of
1:39:55dissatisfaction that's just inherent in
1:39:57life. The second noble truth I think was
1:40:00that we create a lot of that suffering
1:40:02though too. And this is kind of what
1:40:03you're getting at is that these
1:40:04attachments that we have or these
1:40:07identities that we identify with or
1:40:08these these things that we call
1:40:10ourselves that creates some sort of
1:40:12inevitable future failure that you're
1:40:15talking about that will generate more
1:40:16suffering for us if we hold on to them
1:40:19so tightly. So, you're not advocating
1:40:21necessarily going and sitting under the
1:40:23Bodie tree and and reaching full
1:40:24enlightenment. Although, if you can,
1:40:26great, right? But just being aware of
1:40:29that, being aware of those attachments
1:40:31and the the failures they're setting you
1:40:33up for is something that can be useful
1:40:36for us because we can not attach to them
1:40:39so tightly if we're more aware of them.
1:40:41Is that what you're saying? Whenever we
1:40:43pursue something or we're interested in
1:40:44something, I think we're psychologically
1:40:46predisposed to only see the upside of
1:40:48the success of that thing while we tend
1:40:51to ignore the inevitable failure of that
1:40:53thing, right?
1:40:54>> Inevitable failure. Okay. Yeah. And and
1:40:56what's funny too is like I think it's
1:40:58really important for the listener to to
1:41:00get this too like this isn't just about
1:41:02trying to achieve something and failing
1:41:04like it's not like like trying to lose
1:41:07some weight and not quite losing it.
1:41:09Like sometimes the failure is
1:41:11precipitated by succeeding at the thing,
1:41:14right? So like let's say I want to
1:41:16become a parent and I want to I want to
1:41:18parent a child. Well, if I parent
1:41:20successfully, I'm going to raise a a
1:41:22healthy independent adult who's no
1:41:24longer going to need me around anymore,
1:41:26which it means like being a successful
1:41:28parent means you no longer have to
1:41:30parent somebody.
1:41:30>> So So even success can hold the seeds of
1:41:32failure.
1:41:33>> Correct.
1:41:34>> And you're just kind of screwed either
1:41:35way.
1:41:35>> Correct.
1:41:36>> Yeah. Okay. And and this is like and I
1:41:38mean this is what is so powerful about
1:41:39the first noble truth is like everything
1:41:41is imperfect.
1:41:42>> Every single thing, right?
1:41:43>> Nothing lasts.
1:41:44>> Everything goes away at some point. And
1:41:48it goes away whether you succeed at it,
1:41:50it goes away whether you fail at it, it
1:41:52goes away no matter what. So anything
1:41:54you attach yourself to, anything you
1:41:56define yourself by,
1:41:58you are tacitly signing up for the thing
1:42:01that is going to eventually disappoint
1:42:02you or or the thing that you're
1:42:04eventually going to grieve. I mean that
1:42:06sounds kind of dark and sad but like
1:42:09it's inevitable. Right. Right. So it it
1:42:12it's it's not necessarily a sad thing.
1:42:14So it the question then becomes what is
1:42:16worth doing even though you know you
1:42:18will probably lose it one day.
1:42:20>> Right. It is for I think for many people
1:42:22it's like being a parent is worth it
1:42:26even though they understand that one day
1:42:27they're not going to be a parent
1:42:28anymore. I think about this you know
1:42:30with marriage, right? There is going to
1:42:32come a day where either my wife or I die
1:42:35before the other one, right? And it's
1:42:38it's still worth doing though even
1:42:40though you know that that is going to
1:42:42eventually happen. It becomes a very
1:42:44useful compass for people to think about
1:42:46what they invest themselves into because
1:42:49you know last chapter we both gave some
1:42:50examples of like very superficial things
1:42:52that we pursued really just to kind of
1:42:54like win a little bit of status and
1:42:56approval from others and how empty that
1:42:58is. I think this is kind of the the
1:43:00rubric for how do you pursue something
1:43:03that is really worthwhile
1:43:06>> over the long run.
1:43:07>> You know the third noble truth is that
1:43:09it is possible to escape suffering right
1:43:12even if you lose something even if you
1:43:13fail at it. Uh and then the fourth noble
1:43:16truth is how you do that the the
1:43:17eight-fold path what they call this is
1:43:19how you live to in order to do that.
1:43:21Again what you're saying is you don't
1:43:22have to sit under the bodie tree. Yes.
1:43:23>> And become enlightened to do that. Is
1:43:25this what they mean by I'm kind of
1:43:26becoming an amateur Buddhist. Okay, this
1:43:28is I've been looking into it before this
1:43:30episode even started.
1:43:31>> Yeah.
1:43:31>> Is this what they mean by the middle
1:43:32way? Is this what I I I don't know if I
1:43:35completely understand the middle way in
1:43:36Buddhism. Is that what they do you know
1:43:37about this at all? It's very similar.
1:43:39It's very Aristotleian like it's like
1:43:41any pursuit there is you will kind of
1:43:44naturally be there's a magnetic pull
1:43:46towards either extreme, right? There's
1:43:49there's always a tendency of like you
1:43:51should try to go out and make all the
1:43:52money or you should just never not care
1:43:55about money at all, right? where it's
1:43:56like actually the way of non-attachment
1:43:59is understanding that money matters but
1:44:01it's also not everything right so
1:44:03there's always kind of this
1:44:04>> okay like the virtue is found in the
1:44:06balance that's the Aristotleian view but
1:44:08in the in the Buddhist view it's the
1:44:09middle way which is
1:44:10>> yes
1:44:11>> how you become nonattaches seeing both
1:44:12of those simultaneously
1:44:14>> yeah and we talked about this a little
1:44:15bit in the values episode where it is
1:44:19actually a a highly functional person it
1:44:22you have a almost like a balance of
1:44:24power of values within you like you have
1:44:26this tension between all the different
1:44:28things that you value in your life and
1:44:30you're you often have to make
1:44:31compromises between them. Whereas like
1:44:34an unhealthy individual is when one
1:44:36value kind of takes over and becomes a
1:44:38tyrant and and every other value or or
1:44:41or thing of importance has to be
1:44:42sacrificed to that single value. Like
1:44:44that's that's where dysfunction comes
1:44:46from. That's where imbalance comes from.
1:44:48And and Aristotle would say that would
1:44:50that would mean living unverirtuously.
1:44:52And then a Buddhist would say that you
1:44:54have become attached to to something and
1:44:56and and that is the root of your
1:44:58suffering as a result.
1:45:00>> Right? Okay. There's kind of two other
1:45:01principles that I think are worth
1:45:03touching on that kind of flow out of
1:45:04this idea that that failure is an
1:45:06inevitable side effect of just setting
1:45:09standards or expectations for yourself.
1:45:11So the first one is is that failure is
1:45:13relative and it's relational. There's
1:45:15never just failure in a vacuum. It's
1:45:17always failure compared to what right?
1:45:20What is the expectation or standard that
1:45:22you have set and then what is the gap
1:45:25between what happened and that outcome?
1:45:27I think everybody has had a series of
1:45:29these experiences throughout their lives
1:45:31where like something has happened to you
1:45:33and it initially felt like a failure
1:45:36because it didn't meet the expectation
1:45:38you had in that moment, but then as you
1:45:41kind of processed it and thought about
1:45:42it, you suddenly realized like, wait,
1:45:44this is actually a really good thing.
1:45:46Oh, I'm actually glad this happened.
1:45:48This isn't a failure at all. Right? Like
1:45:49we've all had that experience before. I
1:45:51think one of the most profound and
1:45:53worldchanging versions of this was uh
1:45:56Alexander Fleming. So Fleming was a a
1:45:58biologist and he was he was studying
1:46:00bacterial cultures and he went on
1:46:02vacation. He accidentally forgot to seal
1:46:06some of the the bacteria that he was
1:46:08studying. And so I guess the petri
1:46:10dishes like became overgrown with mold
1:46:13while he was gone. So when he came back,
1:46:15the specimens that he was studying had
1:46:16like be were ruined by a bunch of mold.
1:46:19And so by the standard of a biologist
1:46:21studying bacteria, he had actually
1:46:22failed spectacularly. He had like
1:46:24destroyed dozens of samples by leaving
1:46:27them out and not protecting them
1:46:28appropriately. But what he noticed after
1:46:30he kind of cleaned everything up is he
1:46:32noticed that where the mold was,
1:46:34bacteria wouldn't grow in its place. And
1:46:37this eventually led to the discovery of
1:46:39penicellin, which is derived from a form
1:46:42of mold. And penicellin has arguably
1:46:43gone on and saved probably more lives
1:46:45than maybe almost anything.
1:46:47>> The first antibiotic, yeah,
1:46:48>> is the the first anti antibiotic. I
1:46:50mean, it's like saved hundreds of
1:46:52millions of lives, maybe even a billion
1:46:54lives. Who knows? And this was
1:46:55discovered as a failure. It was a form
1:46:57of failure. But if you move the
1:46:59goalpost, it's actually one of the
1:47:01greatest successes in human history.
1:47:03This sort of stuff happens everywhere. I
1:47:05mean, I see it like in our business,
1:47:07this industry, podcasting, online
1:47:09content, media, everything. It is
1:47:11changing so fast. I mean, how many times
1:47:14do I change our business strategy?
1:47:17>> Yeah. By the end of the month, I'm not
1:47:19even sure what we're measuring anymore.
1:47:20Yeah. [laughter] Sometimes. Yeah.
1:47:22Because we have to. I Yeah.
1:47:23>> Yeah. Sometimes I feel bad for the team.
1:47:25I feel like the team gets whiplashed
1:47:26because it's like every other quarter
1:47:27I'm like, "Okay, guys, we're changing
1:47:29everything.
1:47:30>> We're going to look at something
1:47:31completely different now." Yeah. But
1:47:32what what happens so often is it's like
1:47:35you define standards and expectations
1:47:37for the quarter or for the year and then
1:47:38you get to June and you're like, "Oh,
1:47:41this actually isn't what we should be
1:47:43optimizing for anymore. We need to
1:47:45change our definition of success and
1:47:47that means we need to change our
1:47:48downstream strategy." And you run into
1:47:50this in romantic relationships as well.
1:47:51I would say the majority of fights
1:47:53within a romantic relationship is the
1:47:56downstream result of either two people
1:47:58having different expectations about
1:48:00certain things or one person failing to
1:48:05shift their expectations about something
1:48:07based on new evidence or or a new
1:48:09experience. So failure is inevitable.
1:48:12Failure is relative and relational. And
1:48:14the last one is that failure is
1:48:16therefore arbitrary. It is a madeup
1:48:19concept. The idea that Alexander Fleming
1:48:21failed as a biologist is a completely
1:48:23madeup definition. The idea that a
1:48:26golfer failed because he missed a putt
1:48:29is completely made up. Putting a ball in
1:48:31a hole 400 yards away, like this is a
1:48:33completely arbitrary construct that a
1:48:36bunch of people came together and just
1:48:37agreed was important. And it's not real.
1:48:41Back to the Buddhist view, it is
1:48:43elucery. Everything is elucery, right?
1:48:46It's like this podcast success is
1:48:49elucery, right? Whether we get a quarter
1:48:52of a million downloads or half a million
1:48:54downloads or a million downloads,
1:48:55whether that is success or failure, it's
1:48:57an arbitrary number that we we make up
1:49:00and we make it up so that we can either
1:49:02feel good or bad about what we did and
1:49:04what happened. At any moment, we can
1:49:06decide to measure success in a in a
1:49:09different way and then feel differently
1:49:10about ourselves. Yeah. And so this
1:49:12raises the question of like if you are
1:49:14feeling like a failure in your life, if
1:49:16you are feeling like you were
1:49:18consistently failing to measure up to
1:49:20some standard or expectation, where did
1:49:23that standard or expectation come from?
1:49:27>> When did you adopt it? Like who says
1:49:29that you have to have it? You don't.
1:49:32Right? Like I think we adopt so many of
1:49:35our standards without realizing that we
1:49:37adopted them. And then we have them for
1:49:39so long we assume that they are capital
1:49:42TR
1:49:44when really it's just another arbitrary
1:49:47narrative that we decided to identify
1:49:50with.
1:49:50>> God. Yeah. You see this all the time,
1:49:51right? Like people are like, "Oh my god,
1:49:53I'm like 35 and I haven't bought a home
1:49:55yet." Or and it's like, "Okay, what what
1:49:57standard are you? you should have a home
1:49:59by 35 or whatever it is, you know?
1:50:01>> Are you measuring yourself by like the
1:50:02boomers who could just houses were
1:50:05practically handed out at on a street
1:50:07corner or are you measuring yourself by
1:50:1021st century standards where there's not
1:50:11enough homes anywhere, right? So, it's
1:50:13like what are you measuring by?
1:50:15>> It's just kind of like the water we swim
1:50:16in though a lot of times, right? We're
1:50:17just like this is what people do and so
1:50:19we do it. Not realizing that just that's
1:50:21setting us up for a lot of that
1:50:22suffering and anguish that the Buddhists
1:50:24talk about. Like you're attaching to
1:50:25something and you don't even know what
1:50:26you're attaching to. If you choose
1:50:27something and you fail by it, that's one
1:50:29thing. But when it's just kind of handed
1:50:30to you and you're just doing it blindly,
1:50:32that's kind of another level of
1:50:33suffering, too. I think
1:50:34>> I do want to note one thing though
1:50:36because what we are talking about right
1:50:38now I think is a very profound
1:50:41realization for people when they first
1:50:43have it you know whether it's when they
1:50:45go to therapy or you know when they
1:50:47meditate for the first time or whatever
1:50:49like the first time you kind of realize
1:50:50this of like oh my god I bought into all
1:50:52these scripts without really realizing I
1:50:54bought into them and they are arbitrary
1:50:56and I don't have to accept them. It is a
1:50:58very very powerful personal experience
1:51:01that I think most people go through.
1:51:03There's a little bit of push back I I I
1:51:05want to put out there which is that once
1:51:07people realize this is is there's a
1:51:10tendency to think well we can just
1:51:12define anything however we want right
1:51:15like we can don't tell me what tall
1:51:17means or what rich means or what poor
1:51:20means like I can just decide what
1:51:22anything means myself and then you can't
1:51:24tell me whether I'm right or wrong. So
1:51:26while that is philosophically true, I
1:51:28think for a society to function well and
1:51:31a culture to be beneficial for the
1:51:34majority of people within it, people do
1:51:36have to come together and agree on some
1:51:39terms and definitions. If everybody has
1:51:41a different definition of everything,
1:51:43then you can't coordinate. And if you
1:51:45can't coordinate, then you don't get the
1:51:48benefits of being a social species,
1:51:51right? you don't get all the all the
1:51:53good things that that come with being
1:51:55part of a larger social group.
1:51:57>> So again, from my amateur-ish Buddhist
1:51:59understanding, I think they address this
1:52:00as well. They distinguish between the
1:52:03relative and the o and the ultimate, I
1:52:05think is what they call it. There's
1:52:06different names for it, but the relative
1:52:07is like the world that we have to
1:52:08navigate and live within and try to be
1:52:11in harmony with one another. And that's
1:52:13kind of what you're talking about.
1:52:14There's actually hold on, you know, you
1:52:15can't just be making up all the rules
1:52:17all the time. We all have to agree on a
1:52:18few things. That's what they call the
1:52:19relative kind of this human world that
1:52:21we have to interact um with each other.
1:52:23Whereas the ultimate like you're saying
1:52:24the philosophical truth is actually no
1:52:26these are all arbitrary and made up and
1:52:28there's a recognition of that. I think
1:52:30again that kind of comes back to that
1:52:31middle way though recognizing both.
1:52:33Again this is my amateur Buddhist
1:52:35understanding that
1:52:36>> I think that's accurate and and I think
1:52:37a a good example of this is imagine
1:52:40there's a a golf tournament with a bunch
1:52:42of PGA pros and all the PGA pros come
1:52:44together and they're like you know what
1:52:45this whole golf thing it's totally made
1:52:47up. I'm going to change the definition
1:52:48of a birdie. I'm going to change a
1:52:50definition of a driver. I'm going to
1:52:51change a definition of a sand track.
1:52:52>> This isn't a par four. It's a par six.
1:52:54>> Yeah. It's like every individual golfer
1:52:55is like, well, you can't tell me what a
1:52:57birdie is. I I have my own definition.
1:52:59You can't invalidate my truth. It's
1:53:01like, okay, well, now the golf game
1:53:02means nothing, right? You you completely
1:53:05you've like destroyed the entire
1:53:06activity because there is no
1:53:09definitional agreement across like what
1:53:12certain terms are. You don't want to be
1:53:15so attached that you forget that this is
1:53:17all just a bunch of madeup stuff and you
1:53:19don't necessarily have to buy into
1:53:20everything. But at the same time, you
1:53:22can't just tell the world to [ __ ] off
1:53:24and imagine anything that's true for
1:53:27yourself. Anything you feel like is true
1:53:29for yourself is true. That's not really
1:53:32going to be helpful either.
1:53:33>> That's a form of attachment itself,
1:53:35right? It's attachment to yourself in a
1:53:37way.
1:53:38>> Attachment to your own definitions.
1:53:39Yeah. To kind of wrap this all up, if I
1:53:42had to define what failure is, I would
1:53:44say really what we do is we define
1:53:46success as an arbitrary and temporary
1:53:49arrangement of certain standards and
1:53:52circumstances. And then failure is just
1:53:55the moment that reality fails to live up
1:53:59to that circumstantial arrangement. And
1:54:02on a long enough timeline, the failure
1:54:04rate of everything is 100%. So there is
1:54:07no arrangement of circumstances that you
1:54:10or I could imagine
1:54:12that will
1:54:14always exist. Western psychology too has
1:54:16also kind of come to the same conclusion
1:54:18around this whole attaching to identity
1:54:20thing and all that. But when it comes to
1:54:22like well-being for instance Jennifer
1:54:24Crocker back in the 2000s she came up
1:54:27with this idea of uh like self-worth and
1:54:31identity. the the moment that you decide
1:54:33your worth depends on any domain in your
1:54:35life again it's kind of like that
1:54:37attachment that is just setting you up
1:54:39for where the failure is going to be the
1:54:40most destructive in your life right so
1:54:43if you say my job is the thing that you
1:54:46know that defines my self worth the most
1:54:48or my relationship or whatever it is you
1:54:50know my whatever hobby you have or or
1:54:53talent or anything like that that's
1:54:55going to be kind of the ground zero for
1:54:58any sort of like damage or any sort of
1:55:00uh threat to that is going to hurt the
1:55:02most. Uh, and the more you you you
1:55:05double down on one or you single out one
1:55:08area of your life or anything like that,
1:55:09the more risk you're setting yourself up
1:55:11for. You actually wrote an article about
1:55:12this a long time ago, right? That um
1:55:14>> diversify your identity.
1:55:15>> Diversify your identity. Right. Right.
1:55:17The identity side too. There's other
1:55:19researchers who clear back in the 80s
1:55:21like they they were thinking about this
1:55:23too. Like if you define yourself through
1:55:25fewer and more concentrated roles, the
1:55:27blast zone for any of those when it does
1:55:30get inevitably does get blown up, these
1:55:33people they they suffer more from like
1:55:35anxiety, depression, all the well-being
1:55:37metrics you can think of. Basically,
1:55:40concentrating your identity or your
1:55:42self-worth in any one of these areas is
1:55:45going to lead to catastrophe 100% of the
1:55:47time at some point. There's a tendency
1:55:50to for people to be like, "Well, just
1:55:51succeed at it all the time then." Well,
1:55:53again, there's an inevitability
1:55:56of the impermanence of it at some point.
1:55:58These like fixed labels even too, maybe
1:56:00it's not a domain in your life, but it's
1:56:01just a trait that you have like I'm
1:56:03talented, I'm smart, I'm beautiful,
1:56:05whatever it is, right? Any one of those
1:56:07is going to fail you at some point. And
1:56:08attaching too hard to them. The the
1:56:11Western psychology bears this out, too.
1:56:12Took them a couple thousand years to
1:56:14catch up to the Buddhists, but they
1:56:15figured it out, too. So, if we haven't
1:56:17lost all the people yet who um got
1:56:18turned off by the religion, just know
1:56:20that there's actually some science
1:56:21behind it, too. We still have a chance
1:56:22to lose them here.
1:56:23>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. Oh,
1:56:25[laughter] for sure.
1:56:25>> Because we're not done with the religion
1:56:27yet.
1:56:27>> But, but yeah, but if you think about
1:56:28this though, like you you could even put
1:56:30all three of these together. Like, think
1:56:32of somebody who is like nothing but
1:56:34their job title, right? And so, they
1:56:36stick their self-worth on that domain,
1:56:37whatever. They're in finance or they're
1:56:39in, you know, whatever. They identify
1:56:41with that so much, too. Like, that's
1:56:43their identity. And they believe that
1:56:45their talent or their intelligence or
1:56:47whatever is what makes all of that
1:56:48possible for them. What happens when
1:56:50they get fired or there's a market
1:56:52crash? You remember seeing this back in
1:56:53like 2008, right? The the financial
1:56:55crash like people committed suicide.
1:56:58>> Yeah. Every massive market crash,
1:57:00there's a bunch of Wall Street guys that
1:57:02off themselves.
1:57:03>> Yeah.
1:57:04>> That's their sole identity. They based
1:57:05it on their intelligence that I'm a
1:57:07really smart person, so I'm going to go
1:57:08into finance and I'm going to take my
1:57:10whole identity. I'm a finance guy and I
1:57:12make a lot of money. That's who I am.
1:57:14Right. That's a that's a an obvious
1:57:15example, but it happens all the time.
1:57:17>> Yeah. There there was an interesting
1:57:18news story about a guy who killed
1:57:20himself in New York a number of years
1:57:22ago. And I I remember reading about it
1:57:24and I I think this is like, you know,
1:57:25cuz everybody hears that there's always
1:57:27a bunch of Wall Street people that end
1:57:29up committing suicide after a financial
1:57:31crash. And I think that's what they
1:57:32don't realize is that people in finance,
1:57:35it's not just it's not just the money.
1:57:37In a lot of cases, it's their sense of
1:57:39competence. It's it's their sense of
1:57:41selfworth. But people don't understand
1:57:43that if you're a really successful guy
1:57:45in in finance, you're not just investing
1:57:47your own money. You're not just
1:57:48investing your company's money. You're
1:57:50investing your family's money. You're
1:57:52investing your friend's money. You're
1:57:54investing your neighbors money.
1:57:55>> That literally is your identity.
1:57:57>> It is your identity.
1:57:58>> So all those people you those people,
1:57:59this is what they see me as,
1:58:00>> right? And it's and it's like if the
1:58:02market starts crashing, it's like the
1:58:03guy across the street's like banging on
1:58:05your door being like, "Did you get out
1:58:06in time? Did you get out in time?" If
1:58:08you lost everything right now, you have
1:58:10to go to all those people you love and
1:58:11care about in your life and tell them
1:58:13that you lost all of their savings.
1:58:14>> Yeah. So, for us to sit here and say,
1:58:15"Why?" Well, I would never do that.
1:58:17Well,
1:58:17>> you don't have your identity wrapped up
1:58:19like they did. [laughter] Yeah.
1:58:21>> Okay. But have you ever done this? Have
1:58:22you ever stuck your identity on too
1:58:23much? I feel like you're you kind of
1:58:25spread out quite a bit.
1:58:26>> Uh, are there certain things?
1:58:29>> I don't know. I don't think I'm very
1:58:31diversified.
1:58:31>> Oh, you don't? Okay.
1:58:32>> I don't. Okay. I don't. Yeah. I'm
1:58:34definitely more focused these days. I
1:58:36think when I was younger, maybe it was a
1:58:37little more diversified, but yeah, these
1:58:39days I I'm Dude, I'm becoming so boring
1:58:42and repetitive. Like I just I work I
1:58:44hang out with like the same five people.
1:58:48I hang out with my wife and I play some
1:58:50video games. Like that's kind of it.
1:58:52>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:58:52>> That's kind of that's kind of all I've
1:58:54got going on.
1:58:54>> So if one of those legs got knocked out
1:58:56>> Oh, yeah. I mean, you would be
1:58:58devastated, you think? I know I haven't
1:59:00done anything and I don't think I will
1:59:02do anything that could potentially get
1:59:03me canceled, but like Oh, yeah. You
1:59:06know, if if I got cancelled, if my
1:59:08career got massively jeopardized, Yeah.
1:59:11it would be it would be a deep deep cut.
1:59:14>> Yeah,
1:59:14>> for sure. Like there's a lot of my
1:59:16identity.
1:59:17>> Oh, I bet. Well, and there's a a lot of
1:59:19people depend on you, too. Like, yeah.
1:59:20>> Yes, I can sympathize with that. I could
1:59:23definitely see that.
1:59:24>> Yeah. I don't know. I feel like as I get
1:59:25older, I've I've loosened a lot of
1:59:26those. I' I've talked about this before,
1:59:28like I've always I had that identity as
1:59:29like, oh, I wanted to be the smart guy.
1:59:30That was kind of like me getting out of
1:59:32certain situations like being smart is
1:59:34going to get me out of these situ
1:59:35situations. I know it'll get me things
1:59:36that I need and, you know, satisfy some
1:59:39of those basic needs that I had. And it
1:59:41that worked for a long time, but then I
1:59:43started to see it fail. Um, and I think
1:59:45luckily I kind of like have slowly
1:59:48loosened my grip on that. It used to be
1:59:50like any slight to my intelligence, I
1:59:51took it very very personally, right? And
1:59:53that's another thing you'll see with
1:59:54somebody who overidentifies with
1:59:55something is that they take it
1:59:56everything very personally around that
1:59:58domain. I still have plenty of
1:59:59attachments. Sure. We're going to talk
2:00:01later about what are good things to
2:00:04identify with. Like what are good
2:00:05failures to sign up for? And I think
2:00:06that's an example of a bad failure to
2:00:09sign up for because it is based on
2:00:11metrics outside of yourself, right? Like
2:00:13you're you're you're essentially basing
2:00:15your how you view yourself on the
2:00:18perceptions of others or or the ability
2:00:21of others. It it came into stark
2:00:23contrast to like when I go to grad
2:00:25school and everybody's smart around you.
2:00:26That doesn't mean anything anymore at
2:00:28that point. So you're like, well, I got
2:00:29to find something else, I guess. Or
2:00:31>> I had the same experience in music
2:00:32school. Yeah. It was
2:00:34>> my whole identity when I was a teenager
2:00:36and then I went to music school and I
2:00:37was just
2:00:39>> Yeah. Everybody's talented.
2:00:40>> Everybody like and and half the guys in
2:00:42my class were so much better than I was.
2:00:44And it just man it was a brutal hit to
2:00:47the ego. Like I said, I feel like I have
2:00:49fewer and fewer identities as maybe it's
2:00:51because I'm of an amateur Buddhist, too,
2:00:52though. There you go. You are you are
2:00:54getting pretty deep down the meditation
2:00:56rapid.
2:00:57>> Oh, man. We'll get into that. [laughter]
2:01:00>> So, if we haven't lost everybody with
2:01:02the religious talk yet, there's still
2:01:04time, Drew. There's still time to fail
2:01:06in this chapter. I want to pivot to
2:01:08Christianity because I think there are
2:01:11some really interesting concepts in
2:01:13Christianity that have a lot to say
2:01:15about failure and the management of
2:01:17failure and atoning for failures. As an
2:01:20atheist, I I personally would
2:01:22characterize Christianity as a very
2:01:25efficient atonement technology or or set
2:01:29of practices. The same way I think
2:01:31Buddhism is a set of practices to like
2:01:33loosen the the ties of identity and like
2:01:37loosen that identification with things.
2:01:39I've come to appreciate Christianity as
2:01:41as a set of practices to help one manage
2:01:45the inevitable fallout of our failures
2:01:47and and
2:01:49disappointments.
2:01:50>> Okay. [laughter]
2:01:51I'm interested to see where you go with
2:01:52this.
2:01:53>> So, I actually want to start with the
2:01:54definition of sin. So, I mean, as you
2:01:56we've talked on this podcast before, I
2:01:58grew up in the church. I grew up going
2:01:59to church all the time. I'm very very
2:02:01familiar with the Bible. One of the
2:02:03concepts I always hated when I was
2:02:06younger was this concept of original
2:02:08sin, which is this idea in Christianity
2:02:10that people are born sinful and you can
2:02:15only be redeemed by coming to to Jesus
2:02:17and asking for forgiveness. As a
2:02:18teenager, I thought this was the most
2:02:20[ __ ] up thing that you could tell
2:02:22people that like you're essentially
2:02:24telling people that there's something
2:02:25inherently wrong with them and there's
2:02:27nothing you can do to fix it other than
2:02:29pray to God and pray to Jesus.
2:02:31>> And yeah, I think on one level that is
2:02:33probably not the best message to be
2:02:36disseminating. like it it is well, let's
2:02:38just say it's a little culty, but
2:02:41[laughter]
2:02:43>> but as I've gotten older and I've I've
2:02:45done a little bit of a deeper research
2:02:47into some of these things and especially
2:02:49prepping for this episode, I I came
2:02:51across some things that made me think
2:02:52about original sin in a little bit of a
2:02:54different way. So the first thing is
2:02:56that I think the popular contemporary
2:02:59idea of sin is that you did something
2:03:01wrong, that you are a bad person, right?
2:03:04Like we think of sin like if I say the
2:03:06word sin
2:03:07>> what do you think of
2:03:08>> of like you know fornication and
2:03:11stealing something
2:03:13hitting like violence hitting somebody
2:03:15>> murder like Yeah. All the horrible
2:03:17things that that people do. Yeah.
2:03:18>> Like I I I almost equated it's like it's
2:03:20like crime essentially right.
2:03:22>> What's interesting is that sin if you
2:03:25look at the the origins of the word sin
2:03:27it actually it comes from an ancient
2:03:29Greek word that was used in archery. And
2:03:32the word sin was was the word that that
2:03:36described an arrow that that missed the
2:03:39bullseye. So like the gap I guess the
2:03:42that that gap in which you missed that
2:03:44was the sin. Right. So
2:03:46>> it didn't hit where you were aiming.
2:03:47>> Exactly. So it is interestingly the
2:03:51origination of the word sin is much more
2:03:54attuned and and aligned with the idea of
2:03:56failure or missing expectations of
2:03:59trying to live up to some sort of
2:04:01standard or outcome and just falling
2:04:03short. And so the idea of original sin
2:04:06if you take all the things we just
2:04:09discussed about Buddhism that
2:04:10[clears throat] no matter how you define
2:04:12yourself, you are also defining your
2:04:14future failures. you're defining all of
2:04:16the standards and outcomes that you're
2:04:18going to fail to live up to and how
2:04:20that's inevitable and unavoidable and
2:04:22there's nothing you can do about it
2:04:23because it is just a a ingrained piece
2:04:26of your psychology.
2:04:29You could call that original sin, right?
2:04:31It's like we are all born with this
2:04:33sense of self that we can never fully
2:04:35live up to. The only way to atone for
2:04:38that is through some radical form of
2:04:40self forgiveness. that understanding
2:04:43of of Christianity, I was like, "Oh,
2:04:46>> it's a little more palatable.
2:04:48>> Tell me more.
2:04:48>> Okay. Okay.
2:04:49>> This is way more interesting." I think
2:04:51the backbone of Christian theology,
2:04:53there is a very manipulative culty way
2:04:55of looking at it, which is kind of what
2:04:57I described earlier. But I I do I also
2:04:59think there is kind of a profound
2:05:00psychological way of looking at it as
2:05:02well. um which is that we are all
2:05:07hampered with this kind of inherent
2:05:09sense of guilt and shame of the fact
2:05:11that we
2:05:13will never be able to fully live up to
2:05:16the standards we set for ourselves that
2:05:17no matter what we pursue in our lives it
2:05:20is going to slip through our fingers at
2:05:22some point that the failure rate of
2:05:23everything is 100% it is always going to
2:05:26be difficult to to deal with that and
2:05:28wrestle with that whether or not
2:05:30anything is our fault we are always
2:05:31going to wrestle with certain feelings
2:05:33of of guilt and shame around that. And
2:05:36what what is the cleanser of guilt and
2:05:38shame? It is a a radical form of of
2:05:41compassion and forgiveness uh for
2:05:43ourselves. If Buddhism nailed the
2:05:45psychological explanation of uh why we
2:05:49struggle so much with feelings of
2:05:51inadequacy and and anxiety and failure
2:05:54and doubt and all these things, I think
2:05:56Christianity nailed the the solution,
2:05:58right? which is kind of this radical
2:06:00self-compassion or this radical self
2:06:02forgiveness. What's also super
2:06:04interesting about Christianity is that
2:06:06it has this bakedin mechanism of
2:06:09confession,
2:06:10>> which I I guess in some ways you could
2:06:13say it was like the predecessor of
2:06:14therapy, of talk therapy.
2:06:16>> Yeah.
2:06:16>> Um which I never really thought about
2:06:18before until we worked on this episode.
2:06:20I was like, "Huh, interesting. We didn't
2:06:22just invent therapy out of nowhere."
2:06:24Like, we've actually The church has been
2:06:26doing this for like 2,000 years. There's
2:06:27a funny story um around confession which
2:06:30is that Martin Luther the
2:06:34the the guy who kicked off the
2:06:35reformation apparently he was such a
2:06:37neurotic mess. He was a monk in a
2:06:40monastery in uh Urfort in in the early
2:06:431500s when he was younger. And
2:06:45apparently he was such a neurotic,
2:06:47self-loathing mess that he would catalog
2:06:51and document all of his failings with
2:06:53such minute detail that his confessions
2:06:56would often last up to six, five, six,
2:06:59seven hours at a time. And it got to the
2:07:02point where like every thought that he
2:07:04had that was wrong, every like minute
2:07:06tiny mistake that like eventually one of
2:07:09the confessors, one of the priests like
2:07:11pulled him aside and was like, "Look,
2:07:12man,
2:07:14you don't really have any problems."
2:07:16Like, [laughter]
2:07:17>> he's like, "I'm talking to people who
2:07:19like [ __ ] killed somebody, like
2:07:21cheated on their wives. you're coming in
2:07:23and telling me that you feel bad because
2:07:25like the rice was undercooked last
2:07:27night, you know, like it it's they had a
2:07:29little bit of a a a come to Jesus
2:07:31moment, no pun intended, of like of
2:07:33like, dude, you don't really have any
2:07:36problems. You're kind of just making
2:07:37this [ __ ] up and and you're abusing
2:07:40yourself. I don't remember exactly what
2:07:41the confessor told him, but it there is
2:07:43a great line in there about how
2:07:45forgiveness is not merely this external
2:07:47thing that happens to you. It is part of
2:07:50it is learning to develop a tolerance
2:07:53and an understanding of your own
2:07:55shortcomings. So if you think of
2:07:57confession in terms of being a technique
2:08:00or even a technology, right, for
2:08:03alleviating the guilt and shame of of
2:08:05failure, I I I think there's actually a
2:08:07really interesting kind of scientific
2:08:09explanation for this. And I'd put
2:08:10therapy in the same category, which if
2:08:12you go back to the sociometer theory
2:08:14that we talked about last chapter,
2:08:15right? that we are there's like
2:08:17something innate within each of us that
2:08:19we are always subconsciously measuring
2:08:21ourselves and how much value we have
2:08:24relative to the tribe and that a lot of
2:08:27our what we experience as our
2:08:28self-esteem is a reflection of that
2:08:30sociometer. Right? If you fail at
2:08:32something and then you go talk to
2:08:35somebody else about it, one of two
2:08:37things is going to happen and maybe
2:08:39both.
2:08:41First thing that's going to happen is if
2:08:43that person listens to you, empathizes
2:08:46with you, and accepts you despite your
2:08:48failure.
2:08:49That probably repairs your sociometer.
2:08:52It reassures you of like, okay, I've not
2:08:54lost status with the tribe. I'm not a
2:08:57total loser. I'm not going to get kicked
2:08:58out tomorrow.
2:09:00Thank God. I'm okay. The second thing it
2:09:03can do is that it can alert you to
2:09:06whether you had an an unhealthy or or an
2:09:09inaccurate expectation or outcome that
2:09:12you are working towards, right? Because
2:09:14if you think about like part of the
2:09:15value of therapy or or just talking to
2:09:17anybody is is the empathy that you get,
2:09:19right? That that there is a certain
2:09:20amount of healing in that. But another
2:09:23aspect of it is like beating yourself up
2:09:25over something and then you go talk to
2:09:27somebody and they're like, "Well, why
2:09:30why are you beating yourself up over
2:09:31that?" Like, "Why is that success to
2:09:33you? That doesn't make sense. My
2:09:35definition is completely different
2:09:36definitions,
2:09:37>> right?" And then you hear their
2:09:38definition, you're like, "Oh, I was
2:09:40being crazy. I this is like that's
2:09:43completely off base. I should have seen
2:09:44it this way that the entire time." So I
2:09:46think the the magic of uh what Freud
2:09:50called the talking cure I think is
2:09:52largely it's a combination of both of
2:09:55those things. It is seeing that you are
2:09:57you are not going to be socially
2:09:58punished that you're not being
2:09:59ostracized and then also having the
2:10:02ability to recalibrate your expectations
2:10:04in such a way that the failure maybe
2:10:07doesn't look like such a failure
2:10:08anymore. again if we haven't lost the
2:10:10people who are are turned off by the
2:10:12religion that bears out in like the
2:10:14psychological research as well and that
2:10:16you're right you made the parallel with
2:10:18therapy that's exactly what it does and
2:10:20then it's it's it's not only that but
2:10:22just like disclosure in general any
2:10:24distressful event not maybe it's not a
2:10:26failure just anything that's bothering
2:10:27you and getting it out there it seems to
2:10:30have some sort of beneficial effect all
2:10:32across the board and it's not just
2:10:34katharsis it's not just getting it off
2:10:36your chest too there is some form of
2:10:38processing, which is exactly what you're
2:10:40talking about. Like there has to you
2:10:41can't just vent to somebody. Like
2:10:42venting is fine, sure, but there there
2:10:45has to be some sort of like processing
2:10:46that happens with it. Penny Baker back
2:10:48in the 90s, he he did all this uh
2:10:50research on this and did this whole meta
2:10:51analysis around it and kind of like
2:10:54basically the form of the confessional
2:10:56where you have an audience and it's not
2:10:58you're not just doing it to yourself.
2:11:00Journaling is good, processing on your
2:11:02own's good, but actually putting it out
2:11:04there precisely because of what you're
2:11:05talking about. like that sociometer
2:11:07theory that we have. It's like we we
2:11:09have to in our minds put ourselves back
2:11:11into the group and be okay and and
2:11:13accept it in some way. I mean, you think
2:11:14about this, a friend comes to you and
2:11:16they they're like, "Oh man, I feel awful
2:11:17about this." Usually, what you're like,
2:11:19you're like, "Dude, like take it easy on
2:11:21yourself." And that has a lot of
2:11:23reparative effects um that that we've
2:11:26seen. There's also the the cost of like
2:11:28not disclosing things too. If we keep
2:11:30all of that in, you end up doing that's
2:11:33where the rumination often comes in,
2:11:35right? That's where the open loops stay
2:11:36open and you can't quite close them. And
2:11:38so there's always that going on in your
2:11:40back in the background, you know, of
2:11:42your mind. There's a physical aspect to
2:11:43it, too. Body keeps the score. Vessel
2:11:45Vanderolk, a lot of that is real.
2:11:47There's all sorts of effects of not
2:11:49disclosing versus disclosing.
2:11:52>> Again, though, it's not just the
2:11:53ctharsis. There's a there's got to be a
2:11:54processing element to it. From what I
2:11:56recall, um, a lot of Pennaker's research
2:11:59on journaling in in particular found
2:12:02that it was journaling was was most
2:12:05beneficial when you specifically
2:12:07journaled about something that bothered
2:12:09you. Like you couldn't just sit down and
2:12:11just dump all your thoughts and ideas. I
2:12:13mean, I'm sure there's some value in
2:12:14that, but like it was specifically when
2:12:17you journaled about some issue in your
2:12:19life that was really eating at you. That
2:12:21is when you saw the benefits of it. And
2:12:24it wasn't just the facts of what's
2:12:25eating you too, but the emotions and the
2:12:27integration between the facts and the
2:12:28emotions. This is what happened. That's
2:12:30a very important part of it. This is how
2:12:31I felt about it. And then um there were
2:12:33continue if you did it over several
2:12:35sessions too. And and the story
2:12:37developed over time and you were able to
2:12:38integrate it and tell a more coherent
2:12:40story over time about that helped a lot
2:12:42too. You you can do that a lot better
2:12:43with someone else. And I think that's
2:12:45why therapy works for some people, for a
2:12:47lot of people around that you can tell a
2:12:49coherent story about eventually make
2:12:51sense of both the factual and the
2:12:53emotional side of it. So yeah,
2:12:55>> in the case of confession in the church,
2:12:58the the power is that radical
2:13:00forgiveness, right? It's like you go you
2:13:02go sit with the priest or whatever, you
2:13:04tell the priest all the awful things
2:13:05that you've done. The priest, you know,
2:13:09consoles you, reassures you and says,
2:13:12"You're forgiven. God still loves you.
2:13:13Jesus loves you, whatever, right?
2:13:15There's probably some sort of like
2:13:17cleansing effect that comes with that.
2:13:18>> There's closure to it. Yeah.
2:13:20>> The other thing that I thought about
2:13:21while you were talking is when we hold
2:13:24things in those standards and metrics by
2:13:26which we measure ourselves,
2:13:28they seem to kind of drift and they
2:13:30drift into like irrational areas. And
2:13:33it's only by like saying it out loud. I
2:13:36mean, I I I'm sure you've had this
2:13:38experience a million times, right? where
2:13:39it's like you've thought you've like
2:13:40thought something, you're really anxious
2:13:42about something and then you like just
2:13:44go to say it out loud and as soon as the
2:13:47words come out of your mouth, you're
2:13:48like, "Wow, I'm being ridiculous."
2:13:50>> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.
2:13:52>> What's what's really interesting about
2:13:53that too is that the they they do find
2:13:55that the the listener in that situation,
2:13:58if they have two qualities, it it tends
2:14:00to do the best as well. One of them is
2:14:02compassion, which you've already said.
2:14:03The other one is being assertive though,
2:14:05too. So this I have a I have a friend in
2:14:07particular when I am thinking those
2:14:09kinds of like crazy thoughts or whatever
2:14:10I'll call her up and she's she'll sit
2:14:12and listen and then she'll immediately
2:14:14come back to me and be like what are
2:14:15like this is why this is crazy. So
2:14:17there's a compassionate and this is the
2:14:18confessional is set up like this like
2:14:20priests were they're they were trained
2:14:22to be like this be compassionate know
2:14:24that we're all sinners quote unquote
2:14:26sinners right but then also they have a
2:14:28code by which they live and they say
2:14:30this is this is how you should go about
2:14:31it so there's an assertiveness to it as
2:14:33well. So, you're absolutely right. Like,
2:14:35it's like, yeah, getting out loud. You
2:14:36might hear it yourself, but someone else
2:14:38could reflect back to you how crazy it
2:14:39is, too, and be assertive enough where
2:14:41they can be like, "Look, I get where
2:14:43you're coming from, but at the same
2:14:44time, too, you're being [ __ ] stupid."
2:14:46Yeah.
2:14:46>> You know what I mean? Like, that's
2:14:47actually very, very valuable. So, it's
2:14:49not again, it's not just catharsis and
2:14:51getting it out there. It's there's some
2:14:53sort of reflection and and processing
2:14:55that has to happen around it.
2:14:56>> Yeah. I remember I met a woman years ago
2:14:59and
2:15:01I remember she came up to me after an
2:15:02event once. This was like a kind of a
2:15:05business event and she told me that she
2:15:07really wanted to start a family but she
2:15:08felt like she couldn't until she was
2:15:11professionally and financially secure
2:15:13and she was just afraid that she was
2:15:15going to run out of time. And this it
2:15:17was a conference with like a lot of
2:15:18successful people. So I was just and I
2:15:20kind of looked at it I'm like you're
2:15:22probably fine. Like in my head I'm like
2:15:24she's probably fine. So I was like,
2:15:25"Okay, when would you be financially and
2:15:27professionally successful enough to to
2:15:29be able to comfortably have a child?"
2:15:30>> Yeah. Where's your standard? Where's
2:15:31your definition here?
2:15:32>> And her definition was a million dollars
2:15:34a year.
2:15:34>> Okay. And
2:15:35>> she thought that was bare minimum.
2:15:37>> Okay.
2:15:37>> To like raise a kid.
2:15:38>> To raise a kid. Okay.
2:15:39>> And it's always tough cuz you like you
2:15:41don't want to like laugh in people's
2:15:42faces, but you know, I remember I was
2:15:43like, "Okay, that's interesting. Why why
2:15:46a million?" And then she started going
2:15:48through all the reasons. And she was
2:15:49like, "Well, you know, either my husband
2:15:50and I would we'd want to quit working,
2:15:52we'd want to have a nanny, we'd want to
2:15:53like go to a private school, like blah
2:15:54blah blah blah blah." And I was like,
2:15:55"Okay, everything you just described
2:15:58like like that you're maybe at like
2:16:00300K, maybe at most, like if you're in a
2:16:04really expensive neighborhood, where's
2:16:05the this other 700K coming from?" Like I
2:16:08actually tried to do the math with her
2:16:09and it just kept coming up so short. I
2:16:11told her I was like, "It's it's clear
2:16:13that this is there's a lot of fear here
2:16:17and you are overcompensating with an
2:16:20extremely large number in your head and
2:16:22you were defining success as this
2:16:24absurdly large number to compensate for
2:16:26that that irrational fear that's going
2:16:27on." I was like, "Where do you think
2:16:28that fear is coming from?" And and sure
2:16:30enough, it turned out she grew up very
2:16:32poor and and was like, you know, father
2:16:35went broke when she was young and the
2:16:37family, you know, like lived in a car
2:16:39for a couple months and had this like
2:16:42torid story from her past. And I was
2:16:44like, got it. Okay, that's so it's the
2:16:47extremity of the number is is it's
2:16:50proportional to your internal
2:16:52emotions. It's not it has nothing to do
2:16:54with the spreadsheet. I was like, first
2:16:56of all, that's completely understandable
2:16:58given where you come from, but you
2:17:00should listen to the spreadsheet.
2:17:02[laughter]
2:17:03>> It's an arbitrary standard. She she
2:17:05adopted it without knowing without
2:17:07knowing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.
2:17:09And so, yeah, reflecting it back to
2:17:10somebody and hopefully seeing it right
2:17:12in front of your face.
2:17:13>> It was funny, too, cuz I remember I
2:17:14remember asking her, I was like I was
2:17:16like, "How many people do you know who
2:17:17have had kids and don't make a million
2:17:18dollars a year?" And she was like she
2:17:20was like, "Oh, everybody."
2:17:21>> Yeah. 100%. How many of those kids are
2:17:23fine? And she was just kind of like,
2:17:26"Oh, yeah. Good point." [laughter]
2:17:28Right. Right. Yeah. [gasps] But it's
2:17:30funny. I mean, your your brain plays
2:17:32tricks with you, right? It's And it's
2:17:33coming back to that Buddhist point of
2:17:35the attachments, right? You know, it's
2:17:37like that attachment is probably
2:17:38deep-seated in her from a very young age
2:17:40of like this intense anxiety around
2:17:43money and an overcompensation around
2:17:45money. And it's probably been there for
2:17:48so long that she like forgets that it's
2:17:50there. She doesn't realize, you know,
2:17:52people don't really talk about money a
2:17:53whole lot. So, like she doesn't have
2:17:56people to measure herself against or
2:17:57maybe she only hangs around people who
2:17:59are super rich. And so, her measurement
2:18:01of what's acceptable is like gotten
2:18:03completely out of whack and she doesn't
2:18:05realize it because she's not confessing.
2:18:08>> Yeah. You can get attached to
2:18:09independence. You can get attached to
2:18:11non-attachment even too, right? Like
2:18:13that's that's always one of my favorite
2:18:14ones that I point out in myself
2:18:15sometimes like I and goes kind of
2:18:18similar to that story. Like when I was
2:18:19growing up, I just realized so many
2:18:20different situations where it's like,
2:18:21"Oh, I'm on my own." And so like
2:18:23independence became a value of mine or
2:18:25like a standard by which I I measured a
2:18:27lot of my life. And then I see it start
2:18:29failing as I get older too. That's
2:18:31another one like with the being smart
2:18:32thing and the independence thing. Then
2:18:33it starts failing you too at some at
2:18:35some point.
2:18:36>> When I was younger and I was really in
2:18:38into Buddhism and meditation, I started
2:18:39to notice that. So some of some of the
2:18:42retreat centers and stuff that I used to
2:18:43go to like the the hardcore regulars,
2:18:46>> there was a little bit of a status game
2:18:48among them, right? You know, so you you
2:18:50kind of hang out with these people after
2:18:51a retreat and, you know, they they'd be
2:18:53like bragging about the month of silence
2:18:55that they did or how they were
2:18:56meditating 3 hours a day or whatever.
2:18:58And there, you know, it just kind of
2:18:59became another dick measuring contest to
2:19:01see who was going to get enlightened
2:19:03first. And I'm like, this is just the
2:19:05same thing. Like this is another version
2:19:08of attachment.
2:19:09>> I I just heard this. I think this is the
2:19:10term used for that. Zen stink. Isn't
2:19:13that what they call it? Zen stink. I
2:19:14think it is where it's like, "Oh, look
2:19:15how look at how quickly I'm becoming
2:19:18enlightened or or on my on the path to
2:19:20enlightenment or whatever it is." Yeah.
2:19:21They call it zen stink.
2:19:22>> But it it's a real problem, right? Yeah.
2:19:24It's I mean, and it it goes back to like
2:19:27the sociometer follows you everywhere.
2:19:29It it is human nature to
2:19:30>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:19:31>> What no matter what environment you put
2:19:33yourself in, you will start measuring
2:19:36yourself against the people in your
2:19:37environment and
2:19:39>> your brain is a big comparison machine.
2:19:40It basically is what it is. Yeah. Yeah.
2:19:43No matter what it is. No matter what the
2:19:44comparison is.
2:19:45>> So at the end of the last chapter I I
2:19:47asked the listener to think about a a
2:19:48major recent failure and kind of
2:19:51consider where they got the definition
2:19:53of that being a failure. I think with
2:19:55this chapter
2:19:57really what to think is first where did
2:19:59that definition of failure come from?
2:20:00Did it come from themselves? Did it come
2:20:02from somebody outside of them? Were they
2:20:04aware that they were accepting that
2:20:05definition, that expectation? And then I
2:20:07think the second piece would be what is
2:20:09their mechanism for
2:20:12finding atonement or finding finding
2:20:14compassion or forgiveness for that
2:20:16failure? Who have they shared their
2:20:18feelings with? And if they have shared
2:20:19the failure with somebody, I'm curious
2:20:21if they ended up finding out that their
2:20:23their expectation or their metric was
2:20:26maybe a little bit out of whack, little
2:20:28little bit irrational. But the point of
2:20:30all of this is that failure is
2:20:32inevitable. Failure is relative and
2:20:35relational.
2:20:37And failure is arbitrary. It's
2:20:39self-defined.
2:20:41But it's also guaranteed. It's it's it's
2:20:43a structural fundamental part of our
2:20:47psychological machinery. It is the
2:20:49inherent price that we pay for caring
2:20:52about anything, for pursuing anything.
2:20:55which I think makes us land with a much
2:20:57better question than we probably started
2:20:59this episode with, which is that it's
2:21:01not about how to fail less. It's about
2:21:04figuring out what is worth failing for.
2:21:08What is worth doing despite the
2:21:10inevitability of failure happening? And
2:21:13that is what we're going to get into in
2:21:15next chapter. Hold that thought. We've
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2:23:48So, there are two ways that we can fail
2:23:50at something. And the first generates
2:23:53information and self-improvement. The
2:23:56second generates judgment and
2:23:58self-loathing. And it's a very subtle
2:24:00difference between the two. Now, my
2:24:03favorite memoir ever written is actually
2:24:06Andre Agasses. I'm not a tennis fan. I
2:24:08could probably count on one hand how
2:24:10many tennis games I have watched in my
2:24:12entire life. Andre Agassi's memoir is
2:24:15fantastic. It's so good. The opening
2:24:18line is I hate tennis. Which is like
2:24:21from the from the first sentence you
2:24:24were like, "Okay, I need to know more."
2:24:26Right? You're just absolutely hooked.
2:24:28What's great about the book other than
2:24:30his incredible self-awareness and
2:24:33self-disclosure is he had a crazy life.
2:24:36So, for people who don't know, Andre
2:24:38Agassi, he was one of the best tenn
2:24:40tennis players who ever lived. His
2:24:42father was an Iranian immigrant, came
2:24:43over to the US in the 1970s.
2:24:47He was a former professional boxer, and
2:24:49he decided before Andre was born, he
2:24:52decided that his son was going to be the
2:24:54number one tennis player in the world.
2:24:56So, as soon as Andre could walk and hold
2:24:58a racket, he was playing tennis. Now,
2:25:00Andre's father was such a psycho. He
2:25:03took one of those tennis ball machines
2:25:04that like shoots balls at you and he
2:25:07modified it himself to shoot balls
2:25:09harder and faster at Andre than any
2:25:12human child could hit it. He wanted
2:25:14other kids to feel easy compared to the
2:25:16ball machine. And then once he modified
2:25:18the ball machine, he forced Andre to hit
2:25:212,500 balls a day. And his reason for it
2:25:25was that if you did 2,500 balls a day,
2:25:28that was 17,500 balls per week, which
2:25:30added up to a million balls per year.
2:25:32And he told Andre that if he hit a
2:25:35million balls a year, he would be
2:25:36unbeatable. Andre was seven
2:25:39[laughter]
2:25:40when he did this. And sure enough, 22
2:25:43years later, he had eight Grand Slam
2:25:45titles, an Olympic gold medal, uh a
2:25:47career golden slam, and was widely
2:25:50considered one of the best tennis
2:25:52players in the world. Now, what's
2:25:53interesting in the book is he talks
2:25:56about his ascendance and his achievement
2:25:58of all of his goals in a way that is a
2:26:00little bit counterintuitive from the
2:26:02outside, but I think makes sense based
2:26:03on all the science and research we've
2:26:05been talking about in this episode. So,
2:26:06for example, when he became the number
2:26:08one ranked player in the world, and I
2:26:10think it was 1990, he said that he
2:26:12wasn't happy about it. In fact, he
2:26:14actually just got more anxious and
2:26:16worried because now he had something
2:26:19that he could lose. And when he won his
2:26:22first Grand Slam title, he won Wimbledon
2:26:24in 1992, he also said that he was wasn't
2:26:28that happy. He was mostly just anxious
2:26:31that he was going to have to defend his
2:26:32title the next year. And so each
2:26:34accomplishment he added to his belt, it
2:26:37didn't make him any happier. It actually
2:26:38made him more miserable because he was
2:26:41afraid of losing what he had already
2:26:42accomplished. This is loss aversion in
2:26:45action. The more you raise the stakes,
2:26:48the more asymmetrical the downside
2:26:51becomes, right? You have more to lose
2:26:53than you do to gain. So therefore, it
2:26:56becomes a lot more difficult to be
2:26:57excited and and happy to gain more. So
2:27:00this pressure, it built and built and
2:27:03built and Agassi kind of imploded in the
2:27:06mid '90s. He went through a little bit
2:27:07of a a crisis, a career crisis. He
2:27:10started playing terribly. He had drug
2:27:12problems. He he had personal life
2:27:15problems. Became kind of a mess. and he
2:27:18had to start over from the bottom. He
2:27:20actually had to kind of go to the
2:27:22equivalent of the tennis minor leagues
2:27:24to like get back on the saddle. And
2:27:26what's interesting is that when he
2:27:28started the second time, he made an
2:27:30agreement with himself, which is that it
2:27:32wasn't going to be about the titles. It
2:27:34wasn't going to be about winning all the
2:27:36matches. It wasn't going to be about
2:27:37being ranked number one. He made tennis
2:27:41a vehicle to some other goal. So he had
2:27:44started a foundation and he realized
2:27:47that the more he won at tennis, the more
2:27:49he was able to provide resources and
2:27:52attention and donations for his
2:27:54foundation. The foundation actually
2:27:56became the goal. It became the thing
2:27:58that he identified with and the thing
2:28:00that he defined his success and failure
2:28:02by. And interestingly, as soon as tennis
2:28:06became the instrument to that new goal,
2:28:09he quickly ascended again and he won the
2:28:12French Open in 1999. He became the
2:28:14number one ranked player again. He kind
2:28:16of had this big comeback in the late 90s
2:28:18and early 2000s. And interestingly, he
2:28:21was able to enjoy it this time. He was
2:28:23able to be satisfied with each victory
2:28:25because the point of the victory was not
2:28:27the victory,
2:28:28>> right? It kind of comes back to the the
2:28:31what we talked about last chapter about
2:28:33how some definitions of success are
2:28:36self-defeating in that once you achieve
2:28:38them they go away. If your goal is to be
2:28:40the best player in the world, as soon as
2:28:42you become the best player in the world,
2:28:44you there's nothing else to win. There's
2:28:46only something to lose. And that's
2:28:47incredibly demotivating. Makes you even
2:28:50more anxious and more neurotic and just
2:28:52absolutely miserable. Whereas if you're
2:28:55trying to uh achieve some other goal and
2:28:59tennis is the instrument to achieve that
2:29:00goal, then being number one in the world
2:29:02is just a better way to achieve that
2:29:03other goal. It's not the point in and of
2:29:05itself. Now, these two approaches, these
2:29:07two periods of Agassi's career, I think
2:29:10are good examples of what healthy
2:29:13failure and unhealthy failure end up
2:29:15looking like. An unhealthy version of
2:29:18failure is when you take some arbitrary
2:29:19metric outside of yourself and you
2:29:21decide to base your identity and your
2:29:23self-esteem on it. And that ultimately
2:29:26ends up being self-defeating because you
2:29:28are basing your self-worth on something
2:29:30that you actually don't have control of.
2:29:32Whereas when you take some metric that
2:29:33you do have control of, you know, the
2:29:36the quality of your relationships, your
2:29:38contribution to society, your ability to
2:29:39help other people, that is something you
2:29:42do always have control of. And so the
2:29:44inevitable failures that come along with
2:29:46it may happen in a way that is much more
2:29:49healthy and able to be integrated into
2:29:52your your f future actions uh and
2:29:55behaviors. So it turns out what Agassy's
2:29:58career shows us is kind of a mapping of
2:30:01what the psychological research shows us
2:30:04is that there is a healthy way to pursue
2:30:07success and to handle failure and there
2:30:09is an unhealthy way to pursue success
2:30:11and handle failure. And as we discussed
2:30:15in the last two chapters, it has less to
2:30:17do with work ethic, how hard you're
2:30:19trying, how smart you are, how talented
2:30:21you are, and it has everything to do
2:30:23with which definitions you've chosen for
2:30:25yourself. Yeah, this this really does
2:30:27map like really well onto the research
2:30:29that was going on for the last 40 years,
2:30:31like even in the middle of when Agassi
2:30:33was going through this. You can
2:30:34categorize goals kind of based on um how
2:30:37you define competence of those goals.
2:30:39And these were studies that were done
2:30:40over the 80s and 90s um for the most
2:30:42part that came up with this framework
2:30:43and it continues on to today. But um
2:30:45essentially you can have mastery goals
2:30:47where competence of the goal or the
2:30:50mastery of the goal is the reference
2:30:52point is yourself.
2:30:53>> Right. Or like it's your own past
2:30:56performance compared to your current
2:30:57performance. Right. Right. You could
2:30:59also concept conceptualize this as task
2:31:01driven. Right. So the success means just
2:31:04getting better at the thing. Right.
2:31:06>> Yeah. Contrast that with performance
2:31:08goals which are the competence the
2:31:11reference point for a competence in that
2:31:12is comparison to other people um or some
2:31:16external standard like we've already
2:31:17talked about right
2:31:18>> uh this is very ego- driven y
2:31:20>> success means that you are demonstrating
2:31:23superiority over other people or over
2:31:26some standard that's external to you.
2:31:28Okay. So, you can already see like what
2:31:30we've talked about where where this is
2:31:31probably headed right now. One detail
2:31:34about the like performance goals um is
2:31:37that your ability is judged kind of by
2:31:39your effort to outcome ratio. If you
2:31:43don't try very hard and you succeed,
2:31:44you're like, "Oh, look, you're you're
2:31:45really good at that, right? You're just
2:31:47your performance is really good. You're
2:31:48a good person at that." But if you try
2:31:50really hard and fail, well, that's
2:31:52that's a that's a verdict on you and
2:31:54your abilities, you as a person at that
2:31:56point, right? So what's interesting
2:31:58about that is a lot of people when they
2:32:00have these performance goals or when
2:32:02they conceptualize goals in terms of
2:32:04performance and these external standards
2:32:05or comparing themselves to others, they
2:32:08will withdraw before they even start
2:32:10because they realize that they're like,
2:32:12"Oh, if I fail at this, it's a it's a
2:32:13verdict on me. So I'm not even going to
2:32:15start." So that's why so many of us do
2:32:16this. We don't even start because that's
2:32:18how we're looking at the goal itself.
2:32:21>> You talk about this all the time. You've
2:32:22always talked about how competitive you
2:32:23are, but you talk about how you're
2:32:25competitive with yourself. That's what
2:32:27you've tried to do anyway is turn that
2:32:28competition inward, which I think is
2:32:30kind of part of the uh part of the
2:32:33unlock here a little bit. Yeah.
2:32:34>> Yeah. I mean, you see this a lot in
2:32:36sports psychology. Um there's all these
2:32:38behind the-scenes documentaries and
2:32:39stuff for like
2:32:40>> NFL players and NBA players and all this
2:32:42stuff and and you can see that like all
2:32:44these psychological findings have have
2:32:46absolutely infiltrated the sports world
2:32:48because all the players say the same
2:32:49[ __ ] They're like it's ultimately it's
2:32:51just it's a competition with ourel man.
2:32:53Scoreboard doesn't matter. Scoreboard.
2:32:54There's all these old sayings uh that
2:32:56have become really popular like the the
2:32:58scoreboard will take care of itself, you
2:32:59know, do your job, the scoreboard
2:33:00doesn't matter, you know, all these
2:33:02things,
2:33:02>> I guess, kind of heruristics and
2:33:04mechanisms to get the athletes to turn
2:33:07their their yard stick internally
2:33:10>> and just try to be as good as they can
2:33:12possibly be and be better than they were
2:33:14the day before and then understanding
2:33:16that if they do that well consistently,
2:33:19>> they will win games and championships as
2:33:21a side effect.
2:33:22>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, every professional
2:33:24sports team has a sports psychologist on
2:33:26on staff now, probably collegiate teams
2:33:28at this point, too. But, yeah, you make
2:33:30an important point there, too, is that
2:33:31these are they're situational states.
2:33:34You can change this. Like, if you do
2:33:36have this orientation that's more
2:33:37performance driven, you can change it
2:33:38back to um more of a mastery goal
2:33:42orientation. Could go the other way as
2:33:44well, though, too. It's very situational
2:33:46based. They even figured this out, too.
2:33:47this guy John Nichols kind of figured
2:33:48this out that if you introduce things
2:33:50like rankings, public comparisons, the
2:33:53evaluative pressures will tip towards
2:33:55more of the performance and ego-driven
2:33:58uh goals that you have, right? What you
2:34:00think about social media, right?
2:34:02>> This kind of tips us all over into that
2:34:04performancedriven goals just just by
2:34:06nature of being in it, right? There's
2:34:09kind of some parallels with intrinsic
2:34:10and exttrinsic motivation here too,
2:34:12right? Which we don't got to get too
2:34:13deep into, but you know, with um kind of
2:34:16the same thing like if you if a kid just
2:34:17likes school and then all of a sudden
2:34:19you want to reward them for getting good
2:34:21grades like by paying them or rewarding
2:34:23them somehow it turns it into more of a
2:34:24performative thing. Yeah.
2:34:26>> Right. And you can you can go from them
2:34:28just doing it to because they enjoy it
2:34:30to them now having to perform. Um, and
2:34:32we see this in like lots of different
2:34:34different areas, but it is situationally
2:34:36dependent, but we can use that to our
2:34:37advantage as well. Just like you're
2:34:39saying, like you can turn that
2:34:40competitiveness back on yourself.
2:34:41>> And I think the key here, the mechanism
2:34:43that's going on here is that when you
2:34:45pursue performative goals, you're
2:34:48tapping into that sociometer. And as
2:34:50soon as you tap into the sociometer, you
2:34:52you're getting your self-esteem involved
2:34:53in a way that you can't really win long
2:34:56term. You end up like Agassy, right?
2:34:58It's like the more you win, the more you
2:34:59have to lose, right? If you if you
2:35:01become king of the mountain like there's
2:35:02only one way which is down. So even if
2:35:05you succeed at those performative goals
2:35:07or performance-based goals you just the
2:35:11success generates more anxiety for the
2:35:13inevitable failure which just makes that
2:35:16inevitable failure that much more
2:35:18harrowing than difficult to deal with.
2:35:20Whereas if you turn it inward and and
2:35:21focus on the mastery goals understanding
2:35:24that the performance will happen as a
2:35:25side effect. If you're only competing
2:35:27against yourself, then you don't have to
2:35:29face that self- judgment to nearly the
2:35:31the same degree. You're not getting the
2:35:33sociometer involved.
2:35:34>> Yeah.
2:35:35>> As much.
2:35:36>> I think also what you're um kind of
2:35:38getting at a little bit here too is is
2:35:39what they developed later in this uh
2:35:41kind of series of studies as well, which
2:35:43is there's another modifying kind of
2:35:45component to this. So, you have the
2:35:46mastery, which is more self-referential,
2:35:48>> and you have the performance goals,
2:35:49which is other referenced, right? But
2:35:51then you also have like what's your
2:35:53what's your reference towards success?
2:35:55uh is it towards success or is it
2:35:57towards avoiding failure? Okay. So they
2:35:59call that approach uh which is
2:36:01approaching you approach success you
2:36:03want to you you want to succeed. Yeah.
2:36:05>> Uh versus do you want to avoid failure.
2:36:08There's two different orientations. So
2:36:09you could have like it gets nerdy here a
2:36:11little bit. There's like a 2x2 matrix.
2:36:12Now you can have a mastery goal or a
2:36:14performance goal and you can have an
2:36:15approach or avoidance orientation
2:36:17towards those. Okay. So there's like
2:36:19four different configurations and we can
2:36:20kind of go through these but don't get
2:36:22too bogged down in the in the matrix of
2:36:24it but just uh the the configurations
2:36:26actually do uh have some real world
2:36:28consequences here. So like the mastery
2:36:30if you have a mastery goal orientations
2:36:32and you're approaching success that's
2:36:34kind of considered to be the the
2:36:35healthiest.
2:36:36>> So you are self-reerenced. You want to
2:36:39improve. If you just like doing the
2:36:40thing for doing the thing and you're
2:36:42competing against yourself maybe
2:36:43>> or at least comparing yourself to a past
2:36:45version of yourself and you're
2:36:47approaching it as in I want to succeed
2:36:50so am I getting better,
2:36:51>> right?
2:36:51>> Is this actually working? Did I learn
2:36:53anything from this? There's that kind of
2:36:55orientation towards it. You can also
2:36:57have a a mastery avoidance orientation
2:36:59as well. This is like a I would say like
2:37:01a lot of like really old professors,
2:37:04[laughter] you know, they like they've
2:37:05gotten to they they've developed all
2:37:07these theories or they've thought about,
2:37:09you know, all these things for so long
2:37:11and they know all this knowledge, but
2:37:12they don't want to like lose their rank
2:37:13within their field and so they don't
2:37:16take any risks or anything like that.
2:37:17They're avoiding failure. It's that loss
2:37:19aversion again. Yeah.
2:37:20>> And then you get into the more
2:37:21performance-driven ones. So like
2:37:22performance uh approach uh which I think
2:37:25is probably what Agassi started out as.
2:37:29is he was performing. He didn't like
2:37:31tennis, but he so he was performing
2:37:32based on someone else's standards and
2:37:34comparing himself to other tennis
2:37:36players, but he wanted to succeed. He
2:37:37was very, very competitive. But then
2:37:39once he got to that top position, that
2:37:42changed into performance avoidance.
2:37:44>> Yeah.
2:37:45>> Where he was again didn't like tennis,
2:37:48was comparing himself to all the other
2:37:49people around him or his father's
2:37:51standards or some external standard and
2:37:53he didn't want to lose that spot so bad,
2:37:55right? So, he was just trying to avoid
2:37:57failure at a certain point, which is
2:37:59like the worst place to be. Like, yeah,
2:38:00you're you're just you're you're so
2:38:03focused on some external standard of
2:38:04some kind that you don't even again you
2:38:06haven't questioned maybe and you just
2:38:09don't want to lose whatever it is you
2:38:10have around it. It's like you're you're
2:38:12holding on to something so tightly you
2:38:13don't want to lose something that you
2:38:14don't even want in the first place.
2:38:15>> Yeah. The effect of the loss aversion is
2:38:18that the higher you scale any sort of
2:38:20mountain, the stronger the gravitational
2:38:22pull of the failure avoidance. You see
2:38:24this in business all the time, right?
2:38:25Companies, they get to a certain level
2:38:27and then they just stop taking risks,
2:38:29right? Because it's, you know, the the
2:38:30executive leadership are like, "Well, we
2:38:32don't want to [ __ ] up our bonuses, so
2:38:33like, let's just keep doing the same
2:38:34thing." There's actually a great book
2:38:36written about this called The
2:38:37Innovator's Dilemma.
2:38:38>> Yeah. It it's about all the examples
2:38:40throughout history of um large companies
2:38:43that actually invented technology like
2:38:4510 20 years before they became popular
2:38:49>> but they didn't want to take the risk of
2:38:51investing in that new technology because
2:38:52it could potentially I mean the the most
2:38:54recent and perfect example is the fact
2:38:55that Google actually invented chatbt 5
2:39:00years before open AI did
2:39:02>> but they actually kept it concealed and
2:39:04didn't develop it because they were
2:39:06afraid that it would interfere with
2:39:07their Google church
2:39:09>> and so that's like perfect example of
2:39:11fail failure avoidance undoing the the
2:39:14possible benefits of of pursuing mastery
2:39:16over something
2:39:17>> at the scale of an institution. Yeah.
2:39:18>> Yeah. Okay. So yeah at the at the
2:39:20individual level though what are the
2:39:22real consequences of the fear of failure
2:39:24right
2:39:25>> and if you think about it they've kind
2:39:29of studied this a little bit too but
2:39:30you're not actually afraid of the
2:39:32practical consequences necessarily. I
2:39:35mean, you might be afraid, yeah, I'm
2:39:35going to lose my job or, you know,
2:39:37you'll lose the material aspects of it.
2:39:38>> Sure.
2:39:39>> But what it really comes down to is back
2:39:41to that sociometer. You're actually
2:39:43afraid of devaluating
2:39:45your rank,
2:39:47>> let's say, or your the your your
2:39:48estimate of yourself within a group. Um,
2:39:51of having that c uncertain future of
2:39:54losing others, losing interest in you
2:39:57with within whatever social circle you
2:39:59you uh run. Essentially, it's the
2:40:02feeling of shame that you're afraid of,
2:40:05right? That's really what we're afraid
2:40:07of. We're afraid of feeling shame.
2:40:08>> Yeah.
2:40:09>> Um because that is a reflection of how
2:40:12we feel about ourselves within this
2:40:15ranking sociometer type thing that we've
2:40:17been talking about, right?
2:40:18>> And it's
2:40:20interesting, this kind of ties in with
2:40:21the loss aversion, like the side effect
2:40:23of that fear of shame is that we start
2:40:25exaggerating the second and third order
2:40:28effects of something, right? So it's
2:40:29it's like
2:40:29>> blows it way out of proportion now,
2:40:31>> right? So you start imagining things
2:40:32like, well, I'm afraid of, you know, not
2:40:34being home enough or whatever. And then
2:40:37you start thinking through what are the
2:40:38consequences of that failure. It's like,
2:40:40oh well, Junior's going to become a drug
2:40:42addict and he's going to drop out of
2:40:43school and he's going to end up in jail.
2:40:45And it's like all this catastrophized
2:40:47stuff that
2:40:49>> is not realistic whatsoever, but it is
2:40:52accurately reflects the emotional
2:40:55intensity of that fear of failure. This
2:40:58comes back to just a a tr a truth about
2:41:02human psychology which is that we always
2:41:04feel first and then we justify the
2:41:06feeling with a narrative later. Yeah.
2:41:08And so if you have this deep-seated
2:41:10>> fear of failure and fear of shame
2:41:13because of some failure in your life,
2:41:15>> the narrative you create around that
2:41:17failure will
2:41:19match proportionally to how afraid you
2:41:22are of it. And this is also why the
2:41:25exercise of of we've in a few episodes
2:41:28we've talked about the exercise of
2:41:29negative visualization like the stoic
2:41:31practice of like actually writing out
2:41:33the worst case scenario and how you
2:41:34would handle it because that exercise is
2:41:36so useful because what you realize when
2:41:38you actually start writing out like okay
2:41:40if I'm not home enough or I don't hang
2:41:42out with Junior enough like what is
2:41:43realistically going to happen? You start
2:41:45writing it out and you realize like oh
2:41:47I'm being completely unrealistic right
2:41:49now. I'm I'm
2:41:51>> blowing things out of proportion. Yeah,
2:41:52but we blow it out of proportion because
2:41:55again of that evolutionary mismatch we
2:41:57have because losing status is would be
2:41:59so catastrophic in in a in a small group
2:42:03of tribal people, right? That actually
2:42:05you should overweight that. But really,
2:42:07yeah, if you sit down and think it out,
2:42:08it's honestly not as bad as it is,
2:42:10right?
2:42:10>> Rarely. Yeah.
2:42:11>> That said though, okay, so we talked
2:42:13about this in the shame episode a lot
2:42:14too. Like shame kind of has a a less
2:42:18unhealthy [laughter] cousin, right? And
2:42:21>> that's guilt,
2:42:21>> right?
2:42:22>> Guilt and shame. We we talked about this
2:42:25a lot in the shame episode as well. The
2:42:28definitions are very important because
2:42:30um of where you place the attribution
2:42:33for the bad feelings, right?
2:42:36>> Basically, um guilt is kind of what we
2:42:38say is when you did a bad bad thing,
2:42:41right? Shame is when you are something
2:42:43bad,
2:42:44>> right?
2:42:44>> All right. And we usually go straight to
2:42:47the shame or a lot of people who are
2:42:48more shamerone at least will go straight
2:42:50to the shame again because of that that
2:42:52that fear that loss aversion of loss of
2:42:54status that sociometer fear that we have
2:42:56right
2:42:57>> but while guilt doesn't exactly feel
2:43:00very good we at least can feel like we
2:43:02can do something about it
2:43:03>> in a lot of these situations right Roy
2:43:05Balmeister did a lot of this work in the
2:43:07the '9s around guilt um it's a
2:43:09relationship maintenance emotion you
2:43:12feel guilt about something it motivates
2:43:14you to go do something about it, right?
2:43:16You go repair that relationship. You go
2:43:17apologize. You go make it right in some
2:43:20way. Shame, on the other hand, is like a
2:43:23withdrawal. It's kind of the opposite.
2:43:24Instead of engaging, you want to
2:43:26withdraw from um from the group or from
2:43:29any social situation because you're so
2:43:31afraid of losing face in that situation,
2:43:33right?
2:43:33>> Yeah.
2:43:34>> So, they have uh they both feel shitty,
2:43:36but one of them is actually like more
2:43:38productive, right? Shame is much more
2:43:40calibrated towards th those social
2:43:42consequences, not the actual harm done.
2:43:44Whereas guilt is like, "Oh, I actually
2:43:46did something wrong. I need to fix
2:43:47this." Right?
2:43:48>> My sense is that these kind of more
2:43:51mastery related goals, the consequence
2:43:53is more likely to be guilt over failure
2:43:56because you're not measuring your
2:43:57self-worth. You're kind of you're
2:43:59managing to leave the sociometer out of
2:44:02it to a large extent. Not completely,
2:44:03but to a large extent. So when you do
2:44:05fail, you just kind of feel bad and
2:44:07you're just like, "Ah, man. and I [ __ ]
2:44:09it up. I I should have didn't take
2:44:11advantage of my my situation.
2:44:13>> Whereas, if it's a performance related
2:44:16goal and you're you're basing your
2:44:17self-worth on hitting some sort of
2:44:19arbitrary external metric that other
2:44:21people are measuring, that's when you
2:44:22invite shame into into the equation.
2:44:26Precisely.
2:44:26>> And I imagine Agassi,
2:44:29>> right, it's early on. He first of all,
2:44:31he's raised by a [ __ ] crazy father
2:44:34who who basically inculcates him from a
2:44:36very young age that like you're only as
2:44:39valuable as your as your tennis ability
2:44:41>> and you're going to be the the best in
2:44:43the world.
2:44:44>> Completely performance driven. Yeah.
2:44:45>> Completely performance driven. And then
2:44:47he develops a personality and of a
2:44:50person who's like his feeling about
2:44:52himself is completely proportional like
2:44:54how he's performing on the court, which
2:44:56is not not a healthy version of
2:44:58self-esteem. of course everything
2:45:00collapses. He falls apart as and as soon
2:45:02as he loses, you know, the world number
2:45:03one or he loses a few big matches, his
2:45:06whole life comes apart because it's just
2:45:07his self-worth comes apart. Whereas the
2:45:10second version, Agassi 2.0, it's much
2:45:13more masterydriven and it's much more
2:45:15there's more guilt associated, right?
2:45:17cuz it's like Agassi version two. If he
2:45:20if he loses a big tennis match, he feels
2:45:23bad because that's an opportunity that
2:45:25he could have leveraged to help his
2:45:26foundation, which is his real goal.
2:45:28That's how he's actually measuring
2:45:30success. So, he feels maybe he feels
2:45:32guilty about that. Maybe he feels like
2:45:33he could have done something better.
2:45:34Maybe he feels like he could learn
2:45:36something from it. Whereas Agassy
2:45:37version 1.0, it's like if he loses his
2:45:40big match, it's like, "Oh, I'm a piece
2:45:41of [ __ ] I'm worthless. I'm such a
2:45:43loser. I can't believe this happened."
2:45:46Right? And then he goes and does a bunch
2:45:48of drugs.
2:45:49>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was addicted to
2:45:51meth at one point, wasn't he? Yeah.
2:45:52>> That's insane. One of the top tennis
2:45:54players in the world and he gets
2:45:55addicted to methamphetamine because
2:45:57because precisely what we're talking
2:45:58about here. Like he was so ashamed
2:46:01>> uh of who he'd become. Right.
2:46:03>> And by the way, for everybody listening,
2:46:04we did a full solved episode on shame
2:46:07last year. It's about four hours long.
2:46:09It's actually one of our I think it's
2:46:11our most popular episode, interestingly
2:46:13enough.
2:46:13>> Might be at this point. Yeah.
2:46:14>> Yeah. I think it's it is it is the most
2:46:16popular solved episode. I believe it is
2:46:20August September of LA of 2025. So go
2:46:22check that out on the feed if you want
2:46:24to get the full download on shame. I
2:46:27think there's an interesting
2:46:28relationship between guilt and shame in
2:46:31and the concept of achievement. I think
2:46:33with each emotion achievement serves a
2:46:36very different role. Right. With guilt
2:46:38achievement I think can be very healthy.
2:46:40It alleviates guilt. Like you said,
2:46:42guilt is it's actionoriented. It's like,
2:46:45okay, I didn't do the thing I was
2:46:46supposed to do, so let me go fix that.
2:46:49Let me let me be better next time. Let
2:46:51me learn from this so that I I don't
2:46:54feel guilty again. Like guilt is a very
2:46:56practical emotion. It's a it's a very
2:46:58corrective emotion in terms of of what
2:47:01we do. And so it's anytime it comes up
2:47:04there there's usually a lesson
2:47:05underneath it that we can implement.
2:47:07Shame is a completely different
2:47:09ballgame. And what's interesting is that
2:47:11I think people try to alleviate shame
2:47:14with achievement, but it backfires
2:47:16because what happens is is the more you
2:47:18try to perform your way out of shame,
2:47:21the more you just reinforce the shame.
2:47:23If I have a deep-seated shame that I'm a
2:47:26fundamentally broken person and the only
2:47:28thing that is going to make me okay is
2:47:32is if I get more views on YouTube, then
2:47:35pursuing more views on YouTube is not
2:47:37going to make me feel better about
2:47:39myself. It's just going to keep feeling
2:47:40like it's not enough. It's like pouring
2:47:42water into a a bucket with a hole in the
2:47:44bottom. Like it's just
2:47:45>> the more I pursue it, the more I feel
2:47:48worthless. The more I feel like it's not
2:47:50good enough, the more I need I feel like
2:47:51I have to pursue it further. Which is
2:47:53why I think shame drives a lot of
2:47:54addictive compulsive sort of behaviors.
2:47:58And so that the trick is to find a way
2:48:00to convert the shame into the guilt. And
2:48:03I think a lot of that is a perspective
2:48:04shift, which is that understanding that
2:48:07first of all, your failures don't make
2:48:08you a bad person. Uh they make you a
2:48:11good person who maybe did the wrong
2:48:14thing or who messed up in some shape or
2:48:16form. Not to bring Jesus back into it,
2:48:19but there's an old Christian saying of
2:48:21love the sinner, hate the sin.
2:48:23>> Um I think there's a lot of wisdom to
2:48:25that, right? Like that is kind of the
2:48:27conversion move between the shame and
2:48:28guilt. We did uh our change episode back
2:48:32in June and I personally think that's
2:48:35one of the best episodes we've done
2:48:36because what I love about that episode
2:48:38is that we we really got finely detailed
2:48:42about human personality and what are the
2:48:45aspects about ourselves that we cannot
2:48:47change and what are the aspects about
2:48:49ourselves that we can and how people
2:48:51tend to get both of those things wrong.
2:48:52Like people tend to think the things
2:48:55that can be changed are the things that
2:48:57can't. And so they feel shame around it.
2:49:01They hate themselves for it. And then
2:49:03they also assume that things that can't
2:49:04really be changed are things that they
2:49:06can. And so they just kind of bang their
2:49:07head against the wall constantly trying
2:49:08to change them. I think there's a lot of
2:49:10value. I think people who are struggling
2:49:12with this that you can probably get a
2:49:14lot of value from that episode first of
2:49:15all, but also understanding that like
2:49:18what aspects of yourself are changeable
2:49:21and that ultimately whatever the bad
2:49:25behaviors you feel awful about,
2:49:28they are likely not an inherent part of
2:49:31your nature or who you are, they are
2:49:33very likely
2:49:35bad adaptations that were misused in a
2:49:38new environment. So what I mean by that
2:49:39is that generally speaking it's like
2:49:42people's patterns that cause bad
2:49:44behavior or problems in their lives.
2:49:46They are leftover patterns from previous
2:49:48eras in their life where that pattern
2:49:50evolved to actually serve them really
2:49:53well. It's like a childhood habit that
2:49:56helped them get through their childhood
2:49:58and adolescence, but now as an adult
2:49:59it's backfiring and screwing up all
2:50:01their relationships. But because they've
2:50:03had that pattern for so long, they think
2:50:06that's an inherent part of who they are.
2:50:08when really it's just a pattern of
2:50:09behaviors that they picked up very early
2:50:12in their life and they never learned how
2:50:13to put it down. So the move from shame
2:50:15to guilt I think is is a first having
2:50:18some some compassion for yourself
2:50:20understanding that failure is
2:50:22inevitable. Everybody screws up
2:50:25everything at some point. That doesn't
2:50:27necessarily make you a bad person. Uh
2:50:30and that a lot of the patterns and
2:50:32behaviors behind that failure um aren't
2:50:35necessarily permanently who you are.
2:50:37They are just patterns you picked up
2:50:39along the way. And then B, taking that
2:50:41yard stick and instead of applying it to
2:50:46yourself being worthy of others, try to
2:50:49just apply it to yourself
2:50:52being worthy of yourself, right? Like
2:50:55it's learning how to take the sociometer
2:50:57out of the equation and recognizing that
2:51:01you don't necessarily have to try to
2:51:03live up to everybody else's standards
2:51:05and arbitrary metrics because they are
2:51:09just as arbitrary as ones that you would
2:51:11come up with for yourself. You you said
2:51:13something in the change episode too that
2:51:15applies here and I think sums this up
2:51:16pretty well and brings Buddhism back in
2:51:18too. So you get a little Jesus and
2:51:20Buddha here.
2:51:20>> [ __ ] yeah. You made the point that
2:51:22you're uh I think it was a meditation
2:51:24teacher of yours would say you're
2:51:26perfect just as you are, but you can
2:51:27always be better.
2:51:28>> Yes.
2:51:29>> And I think that's getting at that too
2:51:32where we have those inherent
2:51:34characteristics about ourselves that we
2:51:35can't change. You're perfect just as you
2:51:37are.
2:51:37>> Yeah.
2:51:38>> But you can always be better because we
2:51:39have these adaptations. We have all of
2:51:41these arbitrary things that we've set
2:51:44for ourselves.
2:51:45>> And so there's the difference between
2:51:47guilt and shame, too. Yeah,
2:51:49>> you don't have to be ashamed of who you
2:51:50are, but you could also be better. Use
2:51:52guilt, you know, in those situations
2:51:54where you have failed yourself or failed
2:51:56others and and make it right.
2:51:57>> And I I think what I talked about on
2:51:58that episode, and it really applies
2:52:01here, is that you need both sides of
2:52:04that statement to be a whole healthy
2:52:06person, right? If you only believe that
2:52:09you're already perfect as you are, then
2:52:11you're going to turn into a narcissistic
2:52:13[ __ ] and be self-absorbed and just
2:52:16really impulsive and do whatever you
2:52:18want.
2:52:18>> If you only believe that you can always
2:52:20be better, then you're going to be
2:52:22guiltridden, shameridden. You're going
2:52:24to constantly be beating yourself up
2:52:26over small failures and infractions. It
2:52:29is the marriage of those two
2:52:30perspectives simultaneously that I think
2:52:34creates a healthy individual.
2:52:36understanding that like you're fine.
2:52:38Like this is you you're a human
2:52:41>> and and you are just as [ __ ] as all
2:52:44the other humans.
2:52:45>> Like we're all struggling and we're all
2:52:47failing at pretty much everything that
2:52:48we're trying to do in in various
2:52:50capacities. But that's okay. That that
2:52:53is
2:52:54>> being human and
2:52:56>> and trying to be better is the whole
2:52:59part of the game. Like that is the whole
2:53:00game.
2:53:01>> But doing it with self-compassion,
2:53:02right? Mhm.
2:53:03>> That's kind of what I think what we're
2:53:04dancing around here is is for a long
2:53:06time I was very I'd hear the word
2:53:08self-compassion be like this is going to
2:53:10>> touchy feely.
2:53:11>> It's touchyfey. It's you're letting
2:53:12yourself off the hook. You're you know
2:53:14this is getting into oh it's okay. You
2:53:17know you don't have to do anything.
2:53:18You're perfect as you are going a little
2:53:20too far that that way. But that's
2:53:22actually that's not that's not what it
2:53:24is. This is kind of like the middle way,
2:53:26right? The self-compassion that you that
2:53:28we're talking about recognizing that you
2:53:31there are things you could change about
2:53:32yourself. There are things you could do
2:53:33better. Of course, we all can though.
2:53:35And that's part of the self-compassion
2:53:37is just that recognized shared humanity,
2:53:39right? But there's also like an
2:53:40underlying like you also don't have to
2:53:42change anything too. At the same time,
2:53:44>> ultimately it is about how you feel
2:53:46about your failures. In subtle art, I
2:53:48wrote the reason self-esteem I think the
2:53:51self-esteem movement kind of failed as a
2:53:53movement is that it tried to improve how
2:53:54people felt about their successes and
2:53:56the best aspects of of themselves when
2:53:59really the measure like proper
2:54:00measurement of mental health is how you
2:54:02how do you feel about your failures and
2:54:04shortcomings and I think self-compassion
2:54:06is a much better
2:54:07>> measurement of that implicit in it is
2:54:10that you are failing at all times. So
2:54:12the question is is what is your
2:54:14relationship with that failure? Is it is
2:54:17it that of mastery and guilt because you
2:54:20didn't you know take advantage of your
2:54:22opportunity or or maximize your your
2:54:25situation or is it that of like
2:54:27self-loathing and shame where you try to
2:54:30shrink from the world and and hide from
2:54:32the world because you feel fundamentally
2:54:34inadequate. It is that balance of
2:54:36recognizing and owning the failures but
2:54:38also being okay with them
2:54:40>> that is the way forward. a great book on
2:54:42this of like the person who wrote the
2:54:44book on it, Kristen Nef,
2:54:46>> wrote the book called self-compassion
2:54:48about this, right? And she goes into
2:54:49like
2:54:50>> what all this entails and everything.
2:54:51One of the things she talks about in it
2:54:53a lot is she cheated on her ex-husband,
2:54:55I think it was. Um,
2:54:57>> and had a lot of shame around that for a
2:54:59very long time and just felt like she
2:55:00was a bad person. Eventually came around
2:55:03to say, "No, no, no. I just I ended up
2:55:04doing this bad thing,
2:55:06>> right?"
2:55:06>> Uh, and and kind of converting that into
2:55:08guilt and being like, "I can do better
2:55:10in the future. I'm okay. It's all right.
2:55:13Eventually got there. Right. She talks
2:55:15about how self-criticism really kind of
2:55:17escalates that shame
2:55:19>> more. Whereas the self-compassion, what
2:55:21you do want to cultivate is kind of what
2:55:22you use to convert that into some form
2:55:24of actionable guilt. I guess both of
2:55:27them feel shitty. Again, neither of them
2:55:30feel good, right? But just one of them
2:55:31has an out.
2:55:33>> One of them has a direction you can
2:55:34point yourself. and she kind of talks
2:55:36about these three components um that you
2:55:38can kind of cultivate for more
2:55:40self-compassion. One of them being
2:55:41self-kindness rather than the
2:55:43self-criticism, right? Uh one another
2:55:45one I mentioned already was a common
2:55:47humanity like recognizing like we've
2:55:49just been talking about. We're all kind
2:55:51of [ __ ] up. We all have these
2:55:53>> these major shortcomings, original sin
2:55:57if you want to or life is suffering from
2:55:58the Buddhists, right? Like we all have
2:56:01that.
2:56:01>> Yeah. Recognizing that helps be a little
2:56:05bit kinder to yourself, too.
2:56:07>> Yeah. And I think that's kind of a
2:56:08natural outcrop of shame is that one one
2:56:12of the defining aspects of shame is that
2:56:14you feel like I'm the only one who's
2:56:16like this, right? Everyone else is
2:56:18normal. I'm [ __ ] up.
2:56:21>> Which the reality is that
2:56:24>> we're all [ __ ] up.
2:56:24>> It's a little bit narcissistic even too.
2:56:26>> It is. It is. It really is. And it is
2:56:28interesting that Yeah. Both of both
2:56:30religions have kind of a a counterpoint
2:56:33to that
2:56:35>> as like a fundamental basis, right? It's
2:56:37the Buddhists believe that it's like,
2:56:39yeah, everybody suffers all the time.
2:56:42>> Which implies your your suffering is not
2:56:44special at all, right?
2:56:45>> Christianity says
2:56:47>> we are inherently of sin.
2:56:51>> We're flawed essentially. We are always
2:56:53offt target, which is basically saying
2:56:56that it's not giving you permission to
2:56:58fail. That's just saying that it's
2:57:00inevitable, right? So there's not
2:57:01there's nothing uniquely wrong with you
2:57:04because we're all in the same boat,
2:57:05>> right? Kind of touches on her third
2:57:07component of it too, which was
2:57:09>> mindfulness over over identification
2:57:11with whatever you did. Like the the
2:57:13shame basically saying, "I am this bad,
2:57:16horrible, terrible person." That's over
2:57:17identifying with it.
2:57:19>> There's a better way to do it, which is
2:57:20to be mindful of that. You're like, "Oh,
2:57:22no, no, no, no. I'm actually separate
2:57:24from this bad thing that I did in some
2:57:25way, shape, or form. I I don't have to
2:57:28over identify with that,
2:57:30>> right? And and she says you could do it
2:57:32best through mindfulness, which I mean,
2:57:34>> sure,
2:57:34>> I would agree too. Um,
2:57:37>> you talked about my meditation practice
2:57:38lately. This is this is a big thing
2:57:40around it is not not identifying with
2:57:43your thoughts, with your emotions, with
2:57:44your failures, with whatever is going
2:57:46on, with any sort of identity that you
2:57:48have.
2:57:49>> Being able to say like, "Oh, that is
2:57:53that's not real." In in a sense, it's
2:57:55not real. Yeah.
2:57:56>> Right. We go back to that relative
2:57:57versus ultimate thing I was talking
2:57:59about. Yes. Relatively speaking, you
2:58:01might have let someone down. You might
2:58:02have screwed up. You might have failed
2:58:03somehow. But ultimately,
2:58:04>> yeah,
2:58:05>> that's not actually who you are.
2:58:07>> Yeah. A really a really common
2:58:08meditation practice that I I've seen
2:58:10taught in many places is that as you're
2:58:12meditating and as identifying thoughts
2:58:14arise, reframe them in your own head.
2:58:17So, for example, if you say like, I am
2:58:19tired, you reframe it in your head as
2:58:21I'm I am experiencing tiredness, right?
2:58:24Or if you have something like I I'm I
2:58:27don't know, you're thinking about
2:58:28something that happened and you're like
2:58:29I am a bad friend. You're like
2:58:31>> I'm somebody who behaved badly with a
2:58:33friend, right? Like it's just you keep
2:58:34removing the the I amness of it and you
2:58:37replace it with like this happened and
2:58:40it creates that separation there. So
2:58:41you're just like, "Oh, okay. This is
2:58:43just something that's feeling thoughts,
2:58:44feelings, all of that. They're they're
2:58:46temporary." Again, the impermanence of
2:58:48everything comes back to that as well,
2:58:50right? Another really good meditation
2:58:51practice though is uh what they call
2:58:53meta or loving kindness.
2:58:56>> And it's it's really interesting um
2:58:58because the way they do it is they'll
2:59:00start you out with you know think of
2:59:02someone very close to you that you love
2:59:03and adore and just have no ill will
2:59:05towards you know send them love and
2:59:07kindness and this is getting touchy
2:59:08feely really quick. I know [laughter]
2:59:10but
2:59:10>> look at but look at you Drew.
2:59:11>> But the the the point of doing that is
2:59:14then you think of like um somebody like
2:59:15an acquaintance.
2:59:16>> Yeah.
2:59:17>> Okay. Now wish them, you know, happiness
2:59:19and all of that. Okay. Now think of
2:59:21somebody that's maybe a little bit
2:59:22difficult to get along with and find a
2:59:24way to then wish them that. Eventually
2:59:27you go back to yourself though, which is
2:59:29for a lot of us that's the hardest one,
2:59:30>> right?
2:59:31>> But after practicing it on other people,
2:59:33just like if a friend comes to you,
2:59:34right, and they're like, I'm having
2:59:36>> I'm feeling shameful about something I
2:59:38did or whatever. And you're like, no,
2:59:39it's okay. And you walked them through.
2:59:41You're not a bad person. It's you know,
2:59:42you did a bad thing, but that's okay.
2:59:44You can make this right. You can point
2:59:46that back at yourself and eventually get
2:59:48to that self-compassionate place where
2:59:51you are separate from a lot of those
2:59:52things where you can see this is oh this
2:59:54is something I can move on from
2:59:56something I can change something I can
2:59:58convert to guilt if I need to
2:59:59>> right
2:59:59>> it's kind of
3:00:01>> kumbaya Bernie
3:00:02>> no no no you know what I honestly the
3:00:05the the waking up app from Sam Harrison
3:00:07we got to deal with them and I I was a
3:00:09paid member before we even had a
3:00:11partnership with them we both were yeah
3:00:12we both were
3:00:13>> friend of the show friend of the go.
3:00:15It's a fantastic app and it's not
3:00:17there's no of the the mysticism and
3:00:19religion if you're not into that.
3:00:20There's a really great introductory
3:00:22course uh that he does
3:00:24>> and uh it will walk you through like how
3:00:27to meditate just and what we're talking
3:00:28about this mindfulness and separating
3:00:30from your thoughts, emotions and all
3:00:31that. It teaches some meta even too in
3:00:34the introductory course. This has been
3:00:36just indispensable, invaluable for me
3:00:39over these last this last year or two
3:00:41honestly that I've been getting more
3:00:42into this and it's really does like when
3:00:45you when you do separate from those
3:00:47thoughts and emotions um in a way and
3:00:50you see them for what they really are
3:00:51like it just takes so much of the sting
3:00:53off of it. And so like
3:00:55>> I'm I'm not enlightened. I'm not going
3:00:57to say that by any means, but I would
3:01:00say I've reduced my suffering by quite a
3:01:02bit just from that. So you can go to
3:01:04manon.deal/ dealwaking up and you can
3:01:06get a free trial uh for that and yeah,
3:01:09get started on that. Like I said, the
3:01:10introductory course is fantastic just to
3:01:12start with.
3:01:12>> He he really knocked it out of the park
3:01:14with that.
3:01:14>> Yeah. But then there's all sorts of
3:01:16there's talks on there about meditation.
3:01:17There's way more meditations around it.
3:01:19There's lots of meta meditations if you
3:01:20want to get into that. Like it's it's
3:01:22worth it.
3:01:23>> All right. Join Drew Bernie on his path
3:01:25to enlightenment.
3:01:26>> That's right. [laughter]
3:01:28>> All right. So we've we've established
3:01:31how failure is arbitrary, relative,
3:01:34purely definitional. We've now talked
3:01:36about how there's kind of two ways we
3:01:39respond to failure. There's like the
3:01:41shame based response. There's the
3:01:42guilt-based response. Obviously, we want
3:01:44to try to convert our failure responses
3:01:47more to guilt because that that's what
3:01:49opens up the opportunity for improvement
3:01:50and growth and change. So, in the next
3:01:53chapter, we're going to finally get into
3:01:55the nuts and bolts of like how do you
3:01:57actually grow from failure? How do you
3:01:59learn from failure? How do you change
3:02:01from your failures? Turns out there's
3:02:03three different types of failures. Each
3:02:04way that you learn from them is slightly
3:02:07different. We're going to get into all
3:02:08of that and we are officially done with
3:02:10all the Jesus and Buddha Kumbaya
3:02:12[ __ ] So, [laughter] stick around.
3:02:17But before we keep going, let's take a
3:02:19quick break for a word from our
3:02:21sponsors. This episode is brought to you
3:02:23by Purpose. We've been talking about
3:02:25failure this entire episode, and I want
3:02:27to talk about what most people actually
3:02:29do when they fail at something. They
3:02:30open a chatbot, type out the whole thing
3:02:32at midnight, and it says some version
3:02:34of, "That sounds really tough. You're
3:02:35being so brave by reflecting on this."
3:02:37And then they feel better for about an
3:02:39hour. Nothing changes because the tool
3:02:41was built to make them feel good, not to
3:02:43help them figure out what went wrong.
3:02:45Purpose is the first AI that is built to
3:02:47do the opposite. It learns your
3:02:48personality, your values, and the
3:02:50patterns you keep repeating, especially
3:02:52the ones that keep landing you in the
3:02:54same place. And when you fail at
3:02:56something, it doesn't tell you that
3:02:57you're handling it beautifully or that
3:02:59you're so brave. It [music] asks what
3:03:01part was actually in your control, what
3:03:03you should do differently, and then
3:03:04gives you the next step. Not a 10 item
3:03:07plan that you'll forget by Thursday. One
3:03:09simple thing, and then it checks in
3:03:11later. If anything in this episode hit
3:03:12close to home and you want something
3:03:14that helps you actually learn from your
3:03:15mistakes instead of just processing your
3:03:17feelings about it forever, go to
3:03:19mark.deals/purpose
3:03:21and start for free. That's
3:03:22mark.deals/purpose.
3:03:24This episode is brought to you by Waking
3:03:26Up. So, we've spent this whole episode
3:03:28talking about failure. And honestly, the
3:03:30failure itself is usually over pretty
3:03:32fast. What lasts is your mind replaying
3:03:35it on a loop for the next 6 months. The
3:03:38conversation you should have handled
3:03:39differently. the problem you saw coming
3:03:41and avoided it anyway. Your brain will
3:03:43construct an entire courtroom, put you
3:03:45on trial, and find you guilty every
3:03:47single night at 2 a.m. Drew and I both
3:03:49use Waking Up, and we're using it long
3:03:51before it sponsored the show. It's the
3:03:53meditation app built by Sam Harris, and
3:03:55it's the only one either of us has stuck
3:03:56with because it's the only one that
3:03:58treats you like an adult. There's no
3:04:00soothing voices telling you to picture
3:04:01your problems as a leaf on a stream. It
3:04:04actually teaches you how your mind
3:04:06works. It gives you guided meditations,
3:04:08lessons on consciousness, philosophy,
3:04:11conversations with people who have spent
3:04:12their entire lives studying this stuff.
3:04:14There is no fluff. And if you want to
3:04:17keep losing the 2 a.m. trial, that's
3:04:19your call. Or you could learn how the
3:04:21courtroom got built [music] in the first
3:04:22place. Waking Up is giving Solved
3:04:23listeners a free 14-day trial. So go to
3:04:26solved.deals/wakingup
3:04:28to get started. [music] That's solved.
3:04:31Waking up.
3:04:36In the mid1 1990s, there was a firstear
3:04:38PhD student at Harvard named Amy
3:04:40Edmonson, and she was studying
3:04:42medication errors that happened in
3:04:45hospitals and among medical teams, and
3:04:48she was working with some very
3:04:50prestigious people in the field. Her
3:04:52thesis posited a pretty reasonable
3:04:55hypothesis, which is that the teams that
3:04:57had the best teamwork and communication
3:05:00probably committed the fewest errors and
3:05:02had the best outcomes in patients in the
3:05:04hospital. And so she spent tons of time
3:05:06studying this. She spent hundreds of
3:05:08hours in the hospitals. She studied
3:05:09eight different nursing units and worked
3:05:11in two different hospitals over this
3:05:12period. And then the data came back
3:05:15completely wrong. In fact, it came back
3:05:19backwards. it was the medical teams that
3:05:22had the most errors were the highest
3:05:24performing. Now, this freaked her out.
3:05:27She wrestled with a great deal of shame.
3:05:29She started to think, "Maybe I don't
3:05:32know what I'm doing. Maybe I don't know
3:05:35how to do research. Maybe I screwed up
3:05:37the data. What am I doing here? I'm a
3:05:40fraud. I'm a fake. Everything is wrong."
3:05:43Fortunately, she stuck with it. She went
3:05:45back to the data. She spent some more
3:05:46time analyzing it. And then she came to
3:05:48a profound realization, a realization
3:05:51that is kind of like a sister
3:05:53realization of the survivorship bias we
3:05:55talked about in chapter one. And that is
3:05:58that it wasn't that the best medical
3:05:59teams committed more errors. It's that
3:06:02they felt free to report more errors.
3:06:05It's the teams that were screwing up the
3:06:07most, they were the ones that weren't
3:06:09even surfacing the mistakes that they
3:06:10were making. They weren't even aware of
3:06:12the mistakes they were making in the
3:06:13first place. whereas the best teams had
3:06:15the most awareness over their mistakes
3:06:18and so they were reporting them more
3:06:20often. So what she realized is kind of
3:06:22this paradoxical effect which is that
3:06:25the people who tend to learn the most
3:06:27from failure are the ones who confront
3:06:30the most failures and the people who
3:06:33learn the least are the ones who find
3:06:35ways of avoiding or just simply being
3:06:38oblivious of their failures in the first
3:06:40place. Now she would go on and develop
3:06:42the concept of psychological safety in
3:06:44teams. It this has been shown in a bunch
3:06:47of research to actually be one of if not
3:06:49the most important trait of successful
3:06:52teams is that people feel a
3:06:53psychological safety to fail to make
3:06:56mistakes to correct each other or to
3:06:58point out errors uh in each other's
3:07:00work. That's not the thing that you
3:07:02would intuitively guess or point at if
3:07:05you were to guess like what makes for
3:07:07the best performing team. you would
3:07:09probably assume the same thing she
3:07:10assumed that they have great
3:07:11communication that they collaborate
3:07:13super well they have the best ideas when
3:07:15at the end of the day it's like no
3:07:18actually they are the most honest about
3:07:20their failures not only to themselves
3:07:23but to each other and I think the
3:07:25psychological safety piece of it is
3:07:27crucial because because as we've talked
3:07:29about throughout this episode our
3:07:31failures hurt so much because of the
3:07:34social repercussions that they have but
3:07:36if we are surrounded by people who are
3:07:38accepting of those errors that gives us
3:07:40the permission to openly face them.
3:07:43>> Edmonson, she actually later on in her
3:07:45career uh in the in 2023, she wrote a
3:07:48book called The Right Kind of Wrong. Um
3:07:49and it was the Financial Times uh
3:07:51business book of the year actually and
3:07:53basically recaps her entire career
3:07:56around studying this type of thing and
3:07:57studying failure in teams um but also
3:08:00within individuals too. Like creating
3:08:01psychological safety within yourself is
3:08:04could be argued to be a very important
3:08:05thing too. admitting your mistakes,
3:08:07being honest about them, all that sort
3:08:08of thing, right? She identified three
3:08:10different kinds of failures, three
3:08:13different kinds of errors um that can
3:08:15occur. And each one of them kind of
3:08:17demands a different response, even
3:08:18though we kind of treat failures kind of
3:08:20all the same. Oh, you need to learn the
3:08:21same lesson from all of them. She said,
3:08:23"No, that's actually not the case.
3:08:24There's different kinds of failures and
3:08:26some some we can learn from and some we
3:08:28can't really learn a whole lot from. So,
3:08:29we should just move on from them."
3:08:31Right? the three types of failures.
3:08:32There was basic failures, complex
3:08:34failures, and then intelligent failures.
3:08:36Okay? So, a basic failure is basically
3:08:39just it's familiar territory. You've
3:08:42done this thing a million times. Just
3:08:43something you just did it wrong.
3:08:44>> The ball got dropped somewhere somewhere
3:08:46along the way, right? In a in a hospital
3:08:48setting and even in individual settings,
3:08:50um though, she's like usually the what
3:08:52the fix is is like a a checklist. Like
3:08:55just make a checklist if you you drop
3:08:57the ball here. Set up some sort of
3:08:59system. set up some sort of forcing
3:09:01function that just forces you to make
3:09:02sure you do this every time. There's no
3:09:04real lesson to be learned here from
3:09:05these types of failures, right? Just fix
3:09:07it, move on, just don't do it again.
3:09:09That's the lesson basically from those,
3:09:10right? Then there's what she called
3:09:12complex failures. There's usually kind
3:09:14of multiple causes or sources. Maybe
3:09:16there's multiple people involved or
3:09:18multiple uh steps in a process that you
3:09:21just you forgot to order something or a
3:09:23delivery got delayed or whatever it is,
3:09:25right? In an institutional setting, it's
3:09:27usually just there's a lot of moving
3:09:28parts. cards, lots of people,
3:09:30>> and usually what it is, it's a
3:09:31reflection of the system that you have
3:09:33built for it, right? You need to have a
3:09:34system in place to make sure it doesn't
3:09:37happen again. Some sort of robust system
3:09:39or a more robust system, right? Or or
3:09:41like a system that like flags issues
3:09:44before they happen.
3:09:45>> It surfaces issues before they happen.
3:09:46Yeah. Something like that. Okay. You
3:09:48could even say in this too, like on the
3:09:49individual level, there's a parallel
3:09:51here with like any kind of relationship,
3:09:53right? Maybe it's a romantic
3:09:54relationship or something where there's
3:09:56so many moving parts to that. There's
3:09:58different communication styles. There's
3:10:00maybe different different uh goals that
3:10:02are even going on. But you would maybe
3:10:05have some system in place for that
3:10:06relationship. You to get too technical
3:10:08and nerdy about it, but you know, like
3:10:10successful couples usually have regular
3:10:11check-ins, you know, that's a system or
3:10:13like certain communicative habits,
3:10:15right?
3:10:15>> Uh okay. Yeah.
3:10:16>> People never break up for one re or they
3:10:18rarely break up for one reason. Even if
3:10:21somebody cheats or something, it's
3:10:22usually the cheating is not didn't
3:10:25happen in a vacuum. There's like a whole
3:10:26history of things that led up to
3:10:28cheating.
3:10:29>> I know people who have gone so far as to
3:10:31actually formally introduce systems into
3:10:33their relationships with like different
3:10:35like to I know a guy who has a [ __ ]
3:10:38notion for his marriage.
3:10:39>> You told me about this before. I
3:10:41[laughter] That's okay.
3:10:42>> And they have like monthly goals,
3:10:44quarterly goals. It's uh
3:10:45>> I'm all about regular check-ins. Don't
3:10:47get me wrong.
3:10:47>> It's a lot. Whatever works. That's true.
3:10:49Whatever floats your boat. They seem
3:10:51very happy. So, okay,
3:10:53>> it is interesting to see relationships
3:10:55as like a complex system whereas like a
3:10:57basic failure is, oh, I forgot to take
3:11:00out the trash cuz I was tired, whatever.
3:11:02>> There can be some learning done in a
3:11:04complex failure. Um, but generally it's
3:11:06just like more about prevention, right?
3:11:08Like preventing things from getting
3:11:09worse than they were or repeating the
3:11:11mistake again,
3:11:11>> improving the system.
3:11:12>> Exactly. Yeah. The last type was
3:11:14intelligent failures though and these
3:11:16are more like she treats these more like
3:11:18experiments. Okay. This is where you're
3:11:21actively trying to learn something
3:11:22whether it fails or not. And failure is
3:11:24almost kind of besides the point at this
3:11:26point, right? There's a few criteria she
3:11:28points out that that create an
3:11:29intelligent failure. One of them is new
3:11:31territory, something you've probably
3:11:32never done before, but you're trying it
3:11:34out. So, you set out to learn something
3:11:36absolutely new. So, again, failure is
3:11:39kind of beside the point at this at this
3:11:41stage. you are actually setting out to
3:11:45gain something at some future time at
3:11:47least to have some sort of gain, some
3:11:48sort of credible opportunity that you're
3:11:50looking to capitalize on. Okay? You're
3:11:51not just doing this on a whim. It's
3:11:53intentional. You also have a prediction
3:11:54about how this is going to go. All
3:11:56right? It's not like you have a guess of
3:11:59like if I do this then this will happen.
3:12:01The intelligent part I think is really
3:12:03in this last component that she
3:12:05describes which is keeping it as small
3:12:06as possible because it's unknown
3:12:09territory because there's all this
3:12:10uncertainty around it. You keep the
3:12:11stakes kind of small in order to learn
3:12:14something very specific. You try to blow
3:12:16this out of proportion and you don't
3:12:18actually learn a whole lot because you
3:12:19don't actually know what went right and
3:12:20what went wrong or if it was just luck.
3:12:22Again, she treats these more as
3:12:24experiments and this is really what she
3:12:26says this is the repeatable thing we
3:12:28want to do. this is the kind of failure
3:12:29we actually want to actively engage in.
3:12:31Whereas the other two like basic
3:12:33failures, mit mitigate those as much as
3:12:35possible. You're not going to learn a
3:12:36whole lot anyway. Minimize them, move
3:12:38on. Complex failures, kind of the same
3:12:41thing. Optimize your systems. Have good
3:12:42systems in place. They're complex, so
3:12:44you have to. But otherwise, it's more
3:12:46about prevention in that. Intelligent
3:12:48failures are where where we really can
3:12:51potentially learn the most.
3:12:52>> Yeah, it's interesting. Tim Ferrris has
3:12:54a heristic around decision-m that is
3:12:56kind of similar to this where where he
3:12:57he says that when choosing what to try
3:13:00to do ask yourself which failure
3:13:02produces the most information which is
3:13:05really interesting if you think about it
3:13:07and I've ended up running these through
3:13:09a lot of my own decisions where I'm like
3:13:11okay I'm going to try to do this thing
3:13:14it it has like maybe a 10% chance of
3:13:16success but by failing at it I'm going
3:13:19to learn so much about myself about the
3:13:22team about my abilities, about what I
3:13:24like, what I don't like, that it's
3:13:26probably still worth doing anyway.
3:13:27>> Okay, so just to recap real quick. So
3:13:29the basic failures don't require a whole
3:13:31lot of response. The complex failures,
3:13:33get your systems in place, surface the
3:13:35problems as quickly as possible.
3:13:38Increase the number of intelligent
3:13:39failures just like you were talking
3:13:40about. You're you're good at you do this
3:13:42all the time. You do this in the
3:13:43business all the time. You're just like,
3:13:44we're going to try this. And then two
3:13:45weeks later, you're like, it's not
3:13:46working. Let's move on.
3:13:47>> Let's stop.
3:13:47>> But we learned that it didn't work,
3:13:48right? This thing doesn't work. This
3:13:50thing doesn't work. This thing doesn't.
3:13:51Oh, this thing kind of works. Let's go
3:13:52with that. Right.
3:13:53>> And it is it's usually small little
3:13:54things that we're doing that we're we're
3:13:56pushing the envelope.
3:13:56>> I do want to go back and and double
3:13:58click really quickly on the basic
3:14:00failures. You said they don't there is
3:14:03no response. What's implied in that is
3:14:06don't dwell on it.
3:14:07>> Yeah. Okay.
3:14:07>> Like a lot of people will sit and dwell
3:14:09and they'll be like, "Oh my god, I'm
3:14:10such an idiot. Why did I do that thing?
3:14:12I I can't believe I
3:14:13>> Or they searched for the lesson and the
3:14:15lesson is you just
3:14:16>> you were tired.
3:14:17>> You were tired.
3:14:17>> Yeah. [laughter]
3:14:18>> You just dropped the ball this one time.
3:14:20There's not a big lesson to be gleaned
3:14:21from it. So just move on.
3:14:22>> Yeah. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense
3:14:24and it and it's good to know what kind
3:14:26of failure we're we're dealing with when
3:14:28it happens. What about this idea that
3:14:30failure makes us more resilient, that it
3:14:32makes us stronger. I'll punch you to one
3:14:34study that was done in 2010. And what
3:14:36they found was that previously
3:14:37successful founders, okay, they they'd
3:14:40had a business, they succeeded with it,
3:14:42probably sold it, had some sort of exit,
3:14:43went on to found a new company, their
3:14:46second venture succeeds about 30% of the
3:14:48time. a little bit surprising that it's
3:14:50only about a third of the time, right?
3:14:51>> Yeah.
3:14:52>> But if you look at first-time founders
3:14:53who've never started a company before,
3:14:55>> they succeed about 21% of the time. Now,
3:14:58these are again, these are
3:14:59venturebacked, so they're pretty they're
3:15:00vetted selectively.
3:15:01>> These are the best of the best.
3:15:02>> Best of the best, right? If you have
3:15:04started a business before and failed
3:15:06that business, then try to start another
3:15:08one, it what they found in this study
3:15:10anyway, was you would succeed about 22%
3:15:12of the time. So, there's really not a
3:15:14whole lot of difference between a
3:15:15first-time founder and somebody who's
3:15:17failed once and tried to start again.
3:15:18And they're basically the same have
3:15:20about the same hit rate in ventureback
3:15:22capital anyway.
3:15:23>> Interesting.
3:15:23>> That kind of tells us in that situation
3:15:25anyway that they didn't learn a whole
3:15:28lot from their failures, [laughter]
3:15:29right? I mean, like they're gleaning
3:15:31more from their successes there. Like
3:15:33the successful people are gleaning more
3:15:34from their successes than the failures
3:15:36are from their failures, right? The
3:15:37success seems to transfer more than the
3:15:40failure does in that situation. I'm not
3:15:42saying obviously there are people who
3:15:43could like learn a lot from failures and
3:15:44the intelligent failures are the best
3:15:46ones and all of that, right? I'm not so
3:15:48sure how to completely generalize that,
3:15:50but it is an interesting little fact
3:15:52there. And especially in the the
3:15:55entrepreneurial and venture-backed
3:15:57world, right,
3:15:58>> where failure is celebrated so much,
3:16:00>> right? Woripped,
3:16:01>> it doesn't seem like there's actually
3:16:02that much of an effect.
3:16:03>> In business, there are almost an
3:16:05infinite number of ways to fail.
3:16:07>> In most markets, there are only a
3:16:10handful of ways to succeed. So, it
3:16:12actually makes sense that you would
3:16:14learn more from your successes than your
3:16:15failures because it's like each
3:16:16individual failure
3:16:17>> you only found one way to fail,
3:16:19>> right? There's just there's just there's
3:16:20thousands of ways you can [ __ ] up
3:16:23>> whereas there's really only a handful of
3:16:25ways that you can succeed. I'm I'm
3:16:28trying to think if that generalizes to
3:16:30other things like
3:16:31>> I'm not sure but there is one little
3:16:33thing they found in this too was that
3:16:35kind of goes along with that which is
3:16:38one of the skills that seemed to be uh
3:16:41repeatable which kind of goes against
3:16:44everything I've ever heard too was
3:16:45market timing.
3:16:46>> Oh yeah.
3:16:48>> So if you know that market really well
3:16:51>> like you said you've succeeded in it
3:16:52once you can time it again for whatever
3:16:54shift in that market there is. Like
3:16:56that's a transferable skill.
3:16:58>> Yeah, you could say market knowledge.
3:16:59>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is Yeah. It's
3:17:01down that's downstream of market
3:17:02knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
3:17:04>> I think one of the reasons purpose has
3:17:06been so successful in our space is that
3:17:09you know I've been doing this for 20
3:17:10years like I know this market this
3:17:12industry like the back of my hand. It's
3:17:13been interesting. All of our competitors
3:17:15come from other markets and so I see
3:17:17them making what are in my opinion like
3:17:19pretty large missteps. I think it's
3:17:21likely we're either close close to being
3:17:23the market leader or currently the
3:17:25market leader. Yeah.
3:17:26>> Um yet we were started comparatively on
3:17:28a shoestring budget. Like some of these
3:17:30companies raised tens of millions of
3:17:31dollars.
3:17:32>> Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. But I I think
3:17:34it does it speaks to the fact too what
3:17:36it is is market knowledge.
3:17:37>> I'm trying to think if that if that
3:17:39applies to relationships as well.
3:17:41Everybody says like the divorce rate's
3:17:4350%, which by the way has not been true
3:17:45in 30 40 years. That it's more like 30
3:17:4832%. But what's interesting is most of
3:17:51the divorces come from the same small
3:17:52group of people. If you've been divorced
3:17:54once, you're actually way more likely to
3:17:55be divorced in future marriages. So, it
3:17:58also makes me wonder if
3:18:00>> that's an interesting parallel. You just
3:18:02found another way to fail a
3:18:03relationship. You never found the right
3:18:04way to do it. Exactly. There's one way
3:18:06to do it.
3:18:06>> And you there's like that classic Toltoy
3:18:08quote, every happy family is the same.
3:18:10Every miserable family is miserable in
3:18:11its own way.
3:18:12>> Meaning, there's lots of ways to be
3:18:13miserable.
3:18:14>> There's a lot of ways to fail a
3:18:15relationship, but there's a very narrow
3:18:17path.
3:18:17>> There's really just only a couple ways
3:18:19to have a success successful one.
3:18:21>> Yeah. And if you figure that out early,
3:18:22it's easier to repeat, I think, is the
3:18:24the point from that. So, yeah, it's just
3:18:26that does failure make you stronger?
3:18:29That question is like asking, do
3:18:30dumbbells make you stronger? It's like,
3:18:33well, it's kind of depends on how you
3:18:34use them, right? Right.
3:18:35>> Not only that, there's actually a really
3:18:36interesting kind of parallel with like
3:18:38working out with this. Um, it's this
3:18:40concept of hormesis.
3:18:42>> Okay. And hormesis is when a stressor is
3:18:45it's harmful at very high doses, but
3:18:47it's very ineffectual at very very low
3:18:50doses. kind of an inverted U curve to
3:18:51it. That's kind of what we see with
3:18:53failure is the same thing as like as
3:18:56working out, right? You lift just the
3:18:58right amount of weight at the right time
3:19:00and the right dosage,
3:19:02>> it helps you get stronger.
3:19:03>> If you overdo it or underdo it, you
3:19:05don't learn anything from it. And
3:19:06they've identified these like four
3:19:08moderators that determine whether or not
3:19:11you will learn from adverse events or
3:19:14failure in your life too. Okay, the
3:19:16first one is dosage. Like I said, like
3:19:17how much are you actually exposed to
3:19:19this failure? Again, if it's too much,
3:19:22>> you get overwhelmed.
3:19:23>> You're overwhelmed and you just give up.
3:19:25Right.
3:19:25>> If you don't get enough, you're not
3:19:27pushed in the right direction. Right.
3:19:28It's coming back to that balance that
3:19:30you need to have some sort of
3:19:31motivation, but not too much uh so that
3:19:34you quit. Right. Right. There was this
3:19:36uh one research in the late 2010s is
3:19:38Wilson found what uh they called the the
3:19:4185% rule. The optimum error rate is
3:19:43about 15%. So you're succeeding about
3:19:4585% of the time but failing about 15% of
3:19:48the time. Again, if you're just
3:19:50succeeding all the time, you're not
3:19:51getting a whole lot of error signal and
3:19:52correction signal. If you're failing all
3:19:54the time, you're probably just going to
3:19:55give up. So, but it was just interesting
3:19:57to find that there's actually like a a
3:19:58number they can put on it. About 15%
3:20:00failure rate you learn the most. You
3:20:02also just like when you're lifting
3:20:03weights though too, you need recovery.
3:20:05That's the second uh moderator. This is
3:20:07something I learned recently. my knee is
3:20:09I'd been trail running and went way too
3:20:11hard and went to the PT and he's like,
3:20:13"Well, how much you rest in?" And I told
3:20:15him and he's like, "That is no, dude."
3:20:17He's like, "No, no, I was running way
3:20:19too way too frequently, way too much."
3:20:21>> Yeah.
3:20:21>> Uh same thing with failure. After a
3:20:23failure, you need a point to recover um
3:20:25and process that. If it's an intelligent
3:20:27failure, you need time to be able to
3:20:29process that. Another one is whether or
3:20:32not this failure was survivable to your
3:20:36identity. How big of an uh hit did you
3:20:38take to your identity? Going back to
3:20:39what we talked about in in that chapter
3:20:41on overidentifying with your goals or
3:20:44even making some part of your life your
3:20:47entire identity if you take a hit to
3:20:49that like how much does it actually
3:20:51drain? How much of a hit do you actually
3:20:53take to who you are?
3:20:54>> Yeah. The defense mechanisms will kick
3:20:56in and you'll you'll ignore the data in
3:20:58front of you to preserve your ego. Yeah.
3:21:00>> The ego is a hell of a drug, right?
3:21:02Yeah,
3:21:02>> it will come in and it will try to
3:21:04defend itself and try to to survive over
3:21:06learning anything. And then the last
3:21:08moderator is very intertwined with this
3:21:11intelligent failure type of thing which
3:21:13is extraction. Like do you actually sit
3:21:15down and learn from it? If you're if
3:21:18you're too ego-driven around it, if
3:21:19you're too performance driven around it,
3:21:21you don't sit down and learn the
3:21:22lessons. You just try to save face. You
3:21:24just try to make yourself look good from
3:21:27the failure or whatever it is, you're
3:21:28not going to learn a whole lot. That
3:21:30goes back to the whole psychological
3:21:31safety thing that Edmonson found. She
3:21:33found it in institutions, but like I was
3:21:35arguing, I think you have to have it
3:21:36with yourself as well, too. Like, is it
3:21:38okay for you to sit down and be honest
3:21:40with yourself about this failure that
3:21:42you had? You do have to take the time to
3:21:43actually extract the lessons from it.
3:21:45You have to be able to to surface those
3:21:46and be self-aware enough to surface the
3:21:48lessons from the failure to learn
3:21:50something from it.
3:21:51>> So, that's really useful. Dosage,
3:21:52recovery, survivability, extraction.
3:21:55There are a few techniques we can apply
3:21:56as well that help mitigate failure and
3:21:59also help prep us beforehand to make
3:22:02sure that we learn from it. One of them
3:22:04is the premortem, which is a practice
3:22:06where you sit down before you start
3:22:08working on a new goal or new project or
3:22:11you take the team before you start on
3:22:13like the this quarter's initiative or
3:22:15whatever and you actually take like an
3:22:16hour and you write out if this is to
3:22:19fail, what will have caused it? And you
3:22:22come up with as many ideas as possible
3:22:24of what those potential failure points
3:22:25are. And you write them out. And you
3:22:28think of the catastrophic failures, the
3:22:30mild failures, the systemic failures,
3:22:32the complex failures, and then of course
3:22:34the basic failures, like where are the
3:22:35places that you can just potentially
3:22:37screw up. And then once you've mapped
3:22:39out all of the potential failure points,
3:22:42that can allow you to start planning to
3:22:45prevent those from happening in the
3:22:46first place. So it can reinforce your
3:22:49plans going into whatever project you're
3:22:51doing to make sure that the failures
3:22:53don't happen ahead of time. The other
3:22:55thing that you can do, so there was some
3:22:57some research pretty recently in 2022
3:22:59around looking at how people are able to
3:23:04properly extract the lessons from
3:23:07failures after the fact. One is called
3:23:09loss framing, which is um take whatever
3:23:12you lost from the failure and actually
3:23:14quantify it. Like try to list out all
3:23:17the things that it cost you. This could
3:23:19be how much money you lost, how many
3:23:21hours you spent, how many clients you
3:23:24missed out on, how much revenue was lost
3:23:26out on. There's something about
3:23:28quantifying things. And it's interesting
3:23:30because this works in reverse as well.
3:23:32Like when you quantify things in your
3:23:33life, you kind of objectify it and and
3:23:36it allows you to kind of separate
3:23:37yourself from it a little bit. That's a
3:23:39little bit of a hazard when you do that
3:23:41to the good things in your life. But if
3:23:43you're evaluating the bad things in your
3:23:44life, you can actually use that to your
3:23:46advantage, right? So, if you're super
3:23:48upset that something didn't go your way,
3:23:50if you actually sit down with the
3:23:51spreadsheet and calculate, okay, what
3:23:53did I actually miss out on here? Oh, it
3:23:55was like 500 bucks in like 12 hours of
3:23:59my life. You're like, okay, that's not
3:24:01that bad, actually. Like, I think I'm
3:24:03going to be fine. The nice thing, too,
3:24:05is that by quantifying that failure, you
3:24:07it gives you a better sense of how to
3:24:08move forward or how to correct it moving
3:24:11into the future. And again, like we
3:24:12talked about earlier, like what often
3:24:14happens is that something feels
3:24:16catastrophic and then when you actually
3:24:18write it out, you're like, "Oh, okay,
3:24:20that actually isn't that bad."
3:24:21[laughter] Like I'm being a little bit
3:24:22of a drama queen right now. The second
3:24:24technique that that these researchers
3:24:26identified is is something called
3:24:27corrective feedback, which is really
3:24:29just simple like what are the tangible
3:24:32steps and processes you can do the next
3:24:35time that will prevent that failure from
3:24:37happening again. So it's it's
3:24:38essentially the post-mortem rather than
3:24:40the premortem. It's like okay this is
3:24:42what happened. If we did these things in
3:24:45hindsight it would have prevented it. So
3:24:47let's make sure that that those things
3:24:48are implemented going into the future.
3:24:51But ultimately to bring this all back to
3:24:53the definitional problem of failure in
3:24:56the first place is that our ability to
3:24:57manage the failure is largely going to
3:24:59be dependent on how we define our
3:25:01expectations in the first place. And so
3:25:03the four moderators that you mentioned
3:25:06are a huge part of that is like simply
3:25:08setting our expectations appropriately
3:25:10so that we are pursuing something that
3:25:13is a manageable challenge. It is
3:25:14something that is both achievable but
3:25:16also difficult, something that we can
3:25:18recover from, something that is not
3:25:20threatening to our ego identity and
3:25:22something that we can definitely learn
3:25:24and extract information from after the
3:25:26fact. If you line up your goals to match
3:25:30those factors after the fact, um, then
3:25:34you are setting yourself up for good
3:25:35failures, as we've established, those
3:25:37failures are inevitable. So, we might as
3:25:39well line ourselves up to have the
3:25:41failures that we're going to benefit the
3:25:42most from. You've kind of mentioned this
3:25:44a few times on on various episodes that
3:25:46we've done about some of your
3:25:48relationships. I guess I I think there's
3:25:50like a kind of a crude premortem,
3:25:52post-mortem thing you did you did when
3:25:54you got with your now wife. You were
3:25:56like, "Okay, I'm not gonna if this ends,
3:25:57it's not going to be because of all
3:25:58these dumb reasons from before."
3:26:00>> Yes. So, there's a little bit of a
3:26:01postmortem, premortem thing going on
3:26:02there.
3:26:03>> That's a really good catch. I had not I
3:26:05had not thought about that. I
3:26:07>> So, we're talking about businesses and
3:26:08money and all this stuff, but it applies
3:26:10in a lot of other areas, too.
3:26:11>> Yeah. I screwed up so many of my early
3:26:13relationships for very stupid reasons.
3:26:16And and the only agreement I made with
3:26:17myself when I was dating my wife was
3:26:20just if this ends, make sure it's not
3:26:24for a dumb reason. That was it, right?
3:26:26>> Yeah. Like I said, like there's a crude
3:26:27premortem kind of type of thing, but
3:26:29also there's a post-mortem uh kind of
3:26:31looking back analysis that you did as
3:26:33well. You're like, "Oh, I messed up
3:26:34this, this, and this. This relationship
3:26:36failed because of whatever trait that I
3:26:38have that I don't want to have going
3:26:40forward, right?" And you turn that into
3:26:43also a premortem as well.
3:26:44>> But this brings up
3:26:47an important facet of this of failure,
3:26:50which is
3:26:50>> when is it okay to quit?
3:26:52>> Ah, okay. like when is quitting failure
3:26:54and when is quitting actually just being
3:26:57smart and not banging your head against
3:27:00the wall.
3:27:00>> There's been some interesting research
3:27:02around this too. There was this uh
3:27:03Karsten Rorch
3:27:05um I believe this is back in the early
3:27:072000s identified these like okay there's
3:27:09there's two capacities that we have when
3:27:11we're looking at quitting. There's gold
3:27:13disengagement. So that's that's quitting
3:27:15basically like when do you disengage?
3:27:17Like there's a skill around when to
3:27:18quit, right? But there also has to be a
3:27:21skill of re-engaging. And does that
3:27:23re-engaging with the same goal or a
3:27:25different goal? There's like a whole
3:27:26skill set around that too. They're kind
3:27:28of they're two independent skills as
3:27:30well. All right. That one doesn't
3:27:32necessarily follow the other and vice
3:27:33versa, right? People who can do these
3:27:35both very well. They know when to quit
3:27:37and they know when where where and when
3:27:39to re-engage, they seem to have the best
3:27:41outcomes around mental health,
3:27:43well-being, happiness, all of that.
3:27:44Again, they're independent though. They
3:27:46don't just because we have one doesn't
3:27:48mean you have the other necessarily.
3:27:49What they've also found too is that
3:27:51that's why this whole like never give up
3:27:53kind of
3:27:54>> Oh yeah.
3:27:54>> ethos that's out there in the culture is
3:27:56actually terrible advice
3:27:58>> because actually the best advice is yeah
3:28:00give up smartly and then re-engage
3:28:02smartly too like know when to pivot or
3:28:05whatever you want to call it. That's
3:28:06actually the best uh the best way to do
3:28:08that. But like how do you go about doing
3:28:11the whole question?
3:28:11>> How do you define smartly?
3:28:13>> Exactly. Annie Duke, who we had on the
3:28:15luck episode um uh last time, she has a
3:28:18whole book on quitting and it's
3:28:19fantastic. Actually, you should
3:28:20everybody should go out and and read
3:28:21that one. Um she gets very in the weeds
3:28:23about certain things, but then she talks
3:28:24about relationships, she talks about
3:28:25career, she talks about all different
3:28:27areas of life, okay? She says something
3:28:29along the lines of quitting on time is
3:28:31usually too late, [laughter] right? It
3:28:34feels too early, but usually you're
3:28:35actually too late when it happens. There
3:28:37were some studies she talked about, one
3:28:39in particular where people who were
3:28:41going through big life changes and
3:28:43decide having to make decisions uh about
3:28:45something and it involved quitting,
3:28:47changing a career, leaving a
3:28:48relationship, those sorts of things like
3:28:51big life decisions, right? They found
3:28:52these people while they were still
3:28:54deliberating on this whether or not
3:28:56followed up with them like 6 to 12
3:28:58months later, something like that. The
3:28:59people who quit pretty much right away
3:29:02were much happier six to 12 months later
3:29:05than the people who hung on for longer.
3:29:08A lot of times what they would do too is
3:29:10like what's the what's the chances of
3:29:12this working out versus not working out.
3:29:14If you're at 50/50 you're usually
3:29:16actually at more like 7525 like you
3:29:19should quit at that point. We hang on
3:29:20for a little bit too long. Again it goes
3:29:22back to that loss aversion thing. That's
3:29:23what she found in that book though,
3:29:25which I I thought was just a fascinating
3:29:27thing. It's like when you're like, "Ah,
3:29:28yeah, I don't know. Maybe I should quit,
3:29:29maybe I shouldn't. It's a tossup. Most
3:29:32likely you should probably just go ahead
3:29:34and quit at that point." And I've seen
3:29:35this a lot of my therapist friends like
3:29:37work with people who are, you know,
3:29:38they're they're really unsatisfied in
3:29:40their jobs and they're like, "Man, if
3:29:41this person would just quit their job
3:29:43and I've told them I'm like, "Oh, you
3:29:44should get that book for them." And like
3:29:45that's a little too on the nose giving
3:29:46them a book called Quit, you know, and
3:29:48[laughter] telling them what to do. But
3:29:50I think there's something to that where
3:29:51intelligent quitting feels like quitting
3:29:54too early. A lot of times we probably
3:29:56should quit a lot more than we do,
3:29:58>> right?
3:29:59>> But it goes back to that loss aversion
3:30:00um that we we hold on to that bias that
3:30:02we hold on to.
3:30:03>> It's interesting that the conventional
3:30:05wisdom is always to stick to it.
3:30:07>> Yeah. Stick it out. Right.
3:30:08>> Whereas it sounds like the actual
3:30:09research suggests that people should
3:30:11quit more often.
3:30:12>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh relationships too. A lot
3:30:14of people are like, "Ah, I'm going
3:30:15through this like should I stay? Should
3:30:17I go?" If you're at that point, most of
3:30:19the time it's probably time to go.
3:30:21>> There's some cost fallacy, right? You
3:30:23know, people especially you get five
3:30:24years into a job or eight years into a
3:30:26relationship and it feels like you're
3:30:28throwing away all that time if you don't
3:30:30stick it out. Um, so there's a lot of
3:30:32biases against quitting. What are the
3:30:35questions or like the the ways we can
3:30:38determine whether it's time to quit
3:30:39something or not?
3:30:40>> So, Rorch actually had these like five
3:30:42questions you should ask on whether or
3:30:44not you should quit, right? The first
3:30:45one being attainability, like honest
3:30:47appraisal, like is this actually
3:30:49something you have the time, the
3:30:51resources, and the willingness to like
3:30:53stick out? If not, move on. Right? That
3:30:56that's a pretty simple one. Simple, not
3:30:57easy. Cuz it's a lot of people I mean, I
3:31:00I do this too. A lot of people are not
3:31:03honest with themselves how much time and
3:31:05energy they're going to put into
3:31:06something. Like there are many things
3:31:09that if I spent 12 hours a day every
3:31:11single day, I probably could accomplish.
3:31:14But am I? No.
3:31:15>> Yeah. I was just talking to a friend
3:31:17recently and she's like, "You know what?
3:31:18I really want a a clean house,
3:31:20>> but I just know I'm not gonna do it. I
3:31:21know I'm lazy, so I'm not gonna do it."
3:31:23>> Yeah.
3:31:23>> I was like, "Okay, good on you." Yeah.
3:31:25>> All right. The next one, the reversal
3:31:27test. Okay. So, imagine succeeding fully
3:31:30right now.
3:31:32>> Again, being very honest with yourself.
3:31:34Would you still want it or is it more
3:31:36just like this kind of nebulous idea
3:31:38that you have that you might want it? It
3:31:40separates us kind of from like is this
3:31:42goal the wrong goal or is the set is it
3:31:45the setback that's going to hurt more?
3:31:47If you fully succeeded in it, would you
3:31:49actually still want it?
3:31:50>> That's a hard one to to
3:31:52>> still want it after succeeding. Like
3:31:55still want to do it?
3:31:56>> Yes.
3:31:56>> Yeah. Would you would you want to
3:31:57continue doing it? Yeah.
3:31:58>> Which like for example, Agassy, if you
3:32:00had asked him
3:32:01>> Yeah. Yeah.
3:32:02>> If you were the best player in the
3:32:04world, would you still want to play
3:32:04tennis? He would immediately say no.
3:32:06>> At one point he would say no. Right.
3:32:07Then we go back to the approach versus
3:32:09avoidance thing as well too. So are you
3:32:11moving to something better or are you
3:32:12just trying to avoid failure? Like if
3:32:14you set a goal out, are you just trying
3:32:15to fulfill some uh external uh goal
3:32:18where you're not going to be seen as a
3:32:20failure or are you actually trying to
3:32:21learn something and get better? Again,
3:32:23turning that back on yourself and
3:32:24competing with yourself and improving
3:32:25yourself versus just trying to avoid
3:32:28failure. The adviser test, I kind of
3:32:29like this one too. It's like would you
3:32:31tell a friend to to go after this? Like
3:32:33if a friend came to you and said gave
3:32:35you all the information that you have in
3:32:36front of you said I want to do this.
3:32:38This is how much time, money, resources,
3:32:40energy I'm going to put into it. Would
3:32:41you tell that same friend to do it or
3:32:43not? That's I think another tricky one
3:32:45too.
3:32:45>> It's a tough one. It's requires a lot of
3:32:47honesty.
3:32:48>> The last one, the cost of the
3:32:50information. So is continuing still the
3:32:53cheapest way to learn something in this
3:32:55uh in this situation or do you already
3:32:58have the lesson? Are you actually going
3:32:59to learn something out of this and get
3:33:01something out of this? Um, or do you
3:33:03already know this lesson and is just
3:33:05kind of like a waste of your time? The
3:33:06through line through all of this really
3:33:08though is that rational quitting, it's
3:33:11kind of a a directional thing. Rational
3:33:12quitting is it's approach motivated. So,
3:33:15you're you're trying to succeed. You're
3:33:17trying to figure out something. You're
3:33:18trying to learn something.
3:33:20It's honest and it's attainability. You
3:33:23could actually probably do this or
3:33:24you're willing to do it anyway. um and
3:33:27you're you're going somewhere with it
3:33:28that has direction. You again, you're
3:33:30learning. You're you're pushing
3:33:31something into new territory and um
3:33:34learning something new about yourself.
3:33:35Fear quitting on the other side, it's
3:33:36avoidance motivated. You're just trying
3:33:38to avoid uh failure. You're trying to
3:33:41avoid discomfort and really the only the
3:33:44maybe the only successful route to it is
3:33:47exiting it is failing it um to begin
3:33:49with. So that would those were RO's kind
3:33:51of five criteria. Anyway,
3:33:53>> I have another one that I used to ask
3:33:55people way back in the day when I when I
3:33:58coached people, which is I I used to
3:34:00call it the desert island test, which is
3:34:02if you could do it, but you did you had
3:34:04to do it on a desert island and nobody
3:34:06would know about it, would you still do
3:34:07it?
3:34:08>> And I like that one because it sorts out
3:34:10the people who are who are externally
3:34:12motivated. They're like really chasing
3:34:14that social validation, that social
3:34:16approval. Because in a lot of cases,
3:34:17people are like, "No, actually, I
3:34:18wouldn't." Which then tells you
3:34:20something. it's you're not actually
3:34:22doing it for the thing itself. I think
3:34:23the other interesting question around
3:34:26this that I've heard recently, so there
3:34:28was an interview of Elon Musk a few
3:34:30years ago and they were talking about I
3:34:32mean the story of SpaceX is just like
3:34:35absolutely ridiculous. He was so close
3:34:38to bankruptcy multiple times. And it was
3:34:40interesting because the interviewer
3:34:41asked him, he said, "I looking back,
3:34:45what do you think if you were to run the
3:34:48SpaceX experiment a hundred times, how
3:34:51many times would it have succeeded?" And
3:34:54I forget what he said, but it was a very
3:34:55low number. It was like, you know, he he
3:34:57was like maybe three or four times out
3:34:59of a 100red it would actually have
3:35:01worked. And then the interviewer said,
3:35:02"At the time, what did you think the
3:35:04likelihood was that SpaceX was going to
3:35:07succeed?" And he said, "10%."
3:35:09Which was a little bit shocking because
3:35:11most entrepreneurs are like delusionally
3:35:13optimistic about themselves. And then
3:35:15the interviewer said, "Well, if you only
3:35:16thought it had a 10% chance to succeed,
3:35:20why did you still do it?" And he said
3:35:22said something really fascinating is he
3:35:24said, "Some things are worth doing even
3:35:27if you expect them to fail." Which I
3:35:29never really thought about before.
3:35:30That's a very different way to look at
3:35:32things.
3:35:33>> Yes. Right. Like what in your life is
3:35:35worth doing even if it is overwhelmingly
3:35:38likely that it's going to fail. It's
3:35:39hard to think of
3:35:40>> that's hard to come up with something.
3:35:42Yeah.
3:35:42>> More than like one or two things
3:35:44>> in terms of like
3:35:46a litmus test of what you're willing to
3:35:48fail at and what failures are tolerable
3:35:51and what failures are worth it and what
3:35:53failures you can learn from. I think
3:35:56that's that's a pretty powerful
3:35:58question. And again to bring back the
3:36:01the Agassy example, right? Like Agassy
3:36:041.0, if you asked him, if you knew
3:36:07you're going to fail at your tennis
3:36:08career, would you still do it? Is it
3:36:10still worth doing? Chances are, I'm
3:36:13pretty sure he would have said,
3:36:13"Absolutely not. There's no way I would
3:36:15do this if I if I thought I was going to
3:36:16fail." Whereas Agassi 2.0, if you asked
3:36:19him, he probably would have still done
3:36:21it, right? Because he's like, "Look,
3:36:22this is this is my best route to do the
3:36:25thing I really care about, contribute to
3:36:27the thing I really that really matters
3:36:28to me. The tennis is just it's a side
3:36:31effect of what I actually care about.
3:36:32>> Yeah.
3:36:33>> Which is really interesting.
3:36:34>> That is that is very interesting. Do you
3:36:36have anything like that in your life
3:36:37that you can think of? I think it can
3:36:39also be applied backwards too, I guess.
3:36:41So like you can look back and say, well,
3:36:42that was still worth it even though I
3:36:44failed. That's a little more common. I
3:36:46think
3:36:46>> the thing that comes to mind immediately
3:36:48is my marriage. That is a hurdle you
3:36:50kind of have to cross to get into a
3:36:52marriage because it is like when you get
3:36:54married like it is something that you
3:36:56think about is like is are we going to
3:36:57go to the the distance? Is this going to
3:36:59end in divorce? Like even this business
3:37:01if I if I knew it was going to fail,
3:37:05I would probably still do it. I would do
3:37:07it much differently.
3:37:08>> Ah right. Okay. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah.
3:37:10Ah that's a Yeah, too. It's more common
3:37:13for us to apply this backwards I think
3:37:15where it's like oh it failed but I think
3:37:16it was still worth it. That's a little
3:37:18easier to see sometimes, too. I just I
3:37:20don't want to get too far into it, but
3:37:21yeah, I I am newly single.
3:37:23>> Yes.
3:37:23>> And and so I had a relationship that
3:37:25failed. Uh yet another one in my life,
3:37:27too. It's a long string of them that I
3:37:29have not learned a lot from. I think
3:37:31sometimes I I not like you where I
3:37:32haven't
3:37:33>> I'm sure you have. I
3:37:34>> I've learned plenty. I've learned
3:37:35plenty. Um but, you know, going through
3:37:37this breakup leading up to it was just
3:37:40it was a lot of emotional turmoil going
3:37:42on. and the breakup itself like when it
3:37:45we dragged it out over a couple hours
3:37:47and all this, right? But I did say at
3:37:49one point there are people who don't get
3:37:52the chance to have their heart broken
3:37:54like this.
3:37:56>> That and that's what I mean like that
3:37:57was worth it. Like this sucks.
3:38:00[laughter]
3:38:01Terribly sucks, right? But some people
3:38:04don't even get the chance to to feel
3:38:05this shitty. Yeah.
3:38:06>> You know what I mean? Like that's a
3:38:08weird way to put it, I guess. And it's a
3:38:10it's again it's a backwards looking kind
3:38:12of uh version of this. But yeah, I'm
3:38:15looking back and I'm like that that was
3:38:16worth it. I did learn a lot from this
3:38:18and I'm I'm still taking a lot of
3:38:19lessons from it. But it kind of took
3:38:22that to to get there too for me. So
3:38:24yeah,
3:38:25>> I do think relationships, romantic
3:38:27relationships are to me that's kind of
3:38:30maybe the most obvious category of a lot
3:38:33of them or most of them even when they
3:38:35don't work, they tend to be worth it.
3:38:37But yeah, there are a lot of things in
3:38:38life that yeah, they it's they're not
3:38:40worth it if they don't work out. And and
3:38:42it's I think maybe maybe the value of
3:38:44that question is is spot those things
3:38:46beforehand and just don't get too
3:38:48invested.
3:38:49>> The Buddhist had that one figured out
3:38:50like don't get too attached.
3:38:52>> Yeah,
3:38:52>> there's something to it. What's your big
3:38:54takeaway from this this episode?
3:38:56>> Oh, I think one of the most eyeopening
3:38:58sections for me anyway was definitely
3:39:00like the mastery versus performance
3:39:01goals. Even though I kind of kind of
3:39:03knew that I've heard about intrinsic and
3:39:05exttrinsic motivation a lot before and I
3:39:06know all of that, but really seeing that
3:39:09put like front and center. A mastery
3:39:12goal being something that's like no no
3:39:14it's like compare yourself to yourself.
3:39:16We've said it many times before. You've
3:39:17said it many times before.
3:39:19>> Put that right next to the performance
3:39:20goals though where
3:39:21>> you put all of this together where the
3:39:23measurement is external to you. Again, I
3:39:26knew all of that. I knew I' I've known
3:39:27all of that. But kind of putting that
3:39:30all together like this in this packaging
3:39:32that we had really showed me the areas
3:39:35of my life where I'm still doing that
3:39:36and I didn't think I was uh but I
3:39:39probably am in in a lot of different
3:39:40ways. So that was good to just kind of
3:39:42do a quick inventory. Is this a mastery
3:39:44goal? Is this a performance goal? Is
3:39:45this a mastery goal? Is this a
3:39:46performance goal? There was a lot of
3:39:47clarifying even around this this recent
3:39:49relationship that ended. I think there
3:39:50was some performance goals around that
3:39:52too for me that I had to really come to
3:39:54terms with. So yeah,
3:39:55>> in the realm of relationships,
3:39:56performance goals are like very
3:39:58corrosive. Like they they really they
3:40:00backfire entirely.
3:40:02>> Well, and they they're they're very hard
3:40:03to see too. There's a social script for
3:40:05you or a a a here's the thing you're
3:40:08supposed to
3:40:08>> and you get validated for it.
3:40:09>> Exactly.
3:40:10>> It's what other people look and see to
3:40:13judge whether your relationship's
3:40:15working or not. I thought there was a
3:40:17lot of interesting research around you
3:40:20feel this thing of failure even if you
3:40:22don't agree with people's judgments of
3:40:24you even if you don't know the people
3:40:27even if you're alone even if there
3:40:29aren't people around you like it still
3:40:31stings in every circumstance I thought
3:40:33that was really fascinating there are a
3:40:34lot of research tidbits in this one that
3:40:36I wasn't aware of prior um but I think
3:40:39for me you know I I mentioned at the top
3:40:41of the show that I think subtle art
3:40:44really kind of gave failure a kind of a
3:40:46conventional mid2010s,
3:40:49>> you know, failure is the way forward,
3:40:51you know, stick it out, learn from it,
3:40:54>> don't don't take it personally, like all
3:40:55all all the kind of the generic advice
3:40:58that's pretty common these days. I was
3:40:59just very satisfied with how deep we got
3:41:02with this one. Again, we tend to think
3:41:04of failure and success as this binary
3:41:06thing that we imagine that there's the
3:41:09there are people out there that are just
3:41:11successful at everything they do or
3:41:13they're successful at the vast majority
3:41:14of the things that they do. But the
3:41:16slippery definitional nature of failure
3:41:19and the relativity of it and how it is
3:41:22like very uniquely tied to our
3:41:26self-defin and our expectations for
3:41:28ourselves and how it's universally
3:41:29experienced. Like you can you can take
3:41:32whatever person you think is the most
3:41:34successful at whatever you want to point
3:41:36out, the majority of that person's
3:41:38experience is probably going to be a
3:41:40failure.
3:41:41>> Like which is [ __ ] up, right? It's
3:41:43like it's almost like our conventional
3:41:45notions of success are are almost like
3:41:47these surfaces that we can only see on
3:41:49other people. We can never see on
3:41:50ourselves and the internal lived
3:41:52experiences of this constant everlasting
3:41:56cycle of of failures and and processing
3:42:00those failures, learning from those
3:42:01failures, moving on from those failures.
3:42:03So, I I really enjoyed the kind of the
3:42:06philosophical depth that this got to.
3:42:08>> Yeah. Yeah.
3:42:09>> Um I actually didn't expect it to go
3:42:12there. I'm glad we finally did our
3:42:14little religion section. Um, you know,
3:42:17keep keep the people happy. But yeah,
3:42:18this one was much more of an an
3:42:20intellectual kind of thing for me. I, as
3:42:23you pointed out, I I think I I tend to
3:42:26handle failure pretty well. Yeah. In in
3:42:28my life. So, there were fewer like ahas
3:42:30for me, but some fun fun intellectual
3:42:33adventures.
3:42:34>> You've been talking about this for a
3:42:35long time, too. Defining your own
3:42:36metrics. You've been talking about that
3:42:37for a long time. That was in the subtle
3:42:38art. That was an old blog post you did.
3:42:40You've been talking about this for a
3:42:41long time. So, I think you've had a lot
3:42:42of time to internalize it.
3:42:43>> And I actually think some of the
3:42:44frameworks in this episode, I think,
3:42:46probably did a better job of explaining
3:42:49or grounding those ideas than than the
3:42:52book did. Well, I guess it's time to
3:42:55quit [sighs and gasps] quit the episode.
3:42:58>> Let's quit it. It is time to quit.
3:43:00Intelligent failure here.
3:43:01>> Intelligent failure. We will see how
3:43:02this one does and then we will learn
3:43:04from it. That is all for today's episode
3:43:06everybody. Thank you for listening, for
3:43:08sticking with us. As always, you can get
3:43:10a free PDF guide with all of our
3:43:12research, references, citations,
3:43:14exercises, everything. Totally free. You
3:43:17can review it whenever you want. Go to
3:43:19solve podcast.com/failure.
3:43:22Check that out. Sign up for the
3:43:23newsletter so you can get notified when
3:43:25the next episodes come out. And please
3:43:28follow us. Give us a review on whatever
3:43:31platform you're you're listening to this
3:43:32on. It's the best thing you can do to
3:43:34support the show. Here's a challenge for
3:43:36you guys. Go find your friend that is
3:43:38the biggest failure in your life and
3:43:41send them this episode
3:43:44and and then and then tell them I think
3:43:46you need this.
3:43:49>> Let us know how that goes.
3:43:50>> Let us know how that goes in the
3:43:51[laughter] comments.
3:43:54[gasps] All right. Thank you everybody.

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