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Why Failure Doesn't Teach You Anything — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 8,538 words · 1,260 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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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 the 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. A quick pause. We'll be right back
7:34after this. This episode is sponsored by
7:3780,000 hours. There's a question I get
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8:56hours. Our
9:01story starts in October of 2009 in San
9:04Francisco.
9:06There about 400 entrepreneurs, software
9:08engineers, and investors attend a new
9:11conference that's built around one
9:12purpose, failure. Talking about failure,
9:15embracing failure, trying to make
9:17failure a little bit more acceptable in
9:20the mainstream. [snorts] The conference
9:22was called Failcon. Now, the founder,
9:23Cass Phillips, she had spent years in
9:26Silicon Valley, surrounded by startups
9:29that frequently failed. Yet, every
9:31conference and event that she went to,
9:33everything was about hockey stick graphs
9:35and how everybody was succeeding and how
9:37every everybody was getting rich and how
9:38everybody was going to be super
9:40successful. And she just recognized that
9:42that wasn't the actual experience of
9:44most entrepreneurs. So, at FailCon,
9:48everything was built around celebrating
9:50failures. At the beginning of the event,
9:52she would always ask the audience, "How
9:53many people here have have failed at
9:55some sort of business venture?" And
9:56pretty much everybody's hand would go
9:58up. And then all of the speakers, their
10:00keynotes had to be about their failures
10:02and what they learned from their
10:04failures. And the conference was a huge
10:05hit. They did versions in like Tokyo and
10:08Dubai and London and all over the place.
10:10They had sessions on all sorts of topics
10:12from really practical kind of nuts and
10:14bolts startup scaling advice to
10:18philosophical discussions of like what
10:20is suffering and what is despair and
10:22basically FailCon kind of had a moment
10:25you know it got a lot of press got a lot
10:27of attention. It was kind of a a big
10:29thing in the early 2010s. But then in
10:312014, Phillips decided to shut it down.
10:34And the party line was that Phillips
10:36believed that she had achieved her goal,
10:38which was that she had made failure
10:39acceptable in in the in the mainstream.
10:42But I don't really buy that. And I don't
10:44think anybody else really bought that
10:45either. Personally, I think Failcon
10:48probably failed for a simple reason,
10:51which is it's actually the same reason a
10:53lot of conferences fail, which is that
10:54it was specifically targeted towards
10:56people who don't have money. [laughter]
11:00>> Like, if you think about like a
11:01conference for people who have failing
11:04startups or have a recently failed
11:05startup, what do all those people have
11:07in common? They are probably broke or in
11:09debt.
11:10>> Yeah. And it's hard to build a thriving
11:13conference business on attendees that
11:15are broke or in debt. But there was
11:17actually a deeper structural problem
11:19with failcon and the philosophy behind
11:21it. And I think this is the same
11:23structural problem behind every
11:25inspirational story that we all hear
11:27about how somebody failed. You know,
11:29Michael Jordan failed so many times or
11:32Steve Jobs failed so many times. And
11:34that is the issue of survivorship bias.
11:37So survivorship bias, it's a concept
11:39that originated with bombers in World
11:42War II. So the military, the US military
11:45noticed that all the bombers would come
11:47back with bullet holes in the same areas
11:50of the plane. And so they did the
11:51obvious thing that you would do if you
11:53didn't think about it very much, which
11:54is that they sourced more armor to
11:57reinforce the parts of the planes that
11:59had been hit with all the bullet holes.
12:01But surprisingly, this didn't prevent
12:03more bombers from being shot down. In
12:05fact, they saw no statistical increase
12:07in in the amount of bombers that
12:09survived. So, after a couple years of
12:11this happening, it was an analyst in the
12:13Air Force uh by the name of Abraham Wald
12:16that realized that people had it
12:18completely backwards. The airplanes that
12:20were coming back with bullet holes all
12:22in the same spots, you know, around the
12:24wings and the tail fin, those were
12:27actually the places you didn't want to
12:28reinforce because those were the spots
12:30that the airplanes could survive being
12:32shot. Instead, what he pointed out is
12:34you wanted to reinforce all of the spots
12:36on the planes that didn't have bullet
12:38holes because the planes that got shot
12:41in those spots were the ones that didn't
12:43come back. This flaw in reasoning, this
12:46this faulty assumption that we all kind
12:47of have around this, it is something
12:49that we do all the time. Survivorship
12:51bias, it infiltrates all sorts of
12:54things, especially in our industry. We
12:55look at a story like Steve Jobs and all
12:57the inspiration around all the times he
12:59failed or like Michael Jordan, how he
13:01got cut from his high school team, but
13:03those aren't really failures. I mean,
13:06there are literally millions of people
13:08who got cut from their high school
13:09basketball team and none of them became
13:12Michael Jordan, right? So, that is
13:14actually not something that is worth
13:16learning from. Yet, it's a huge part of
13:18his story and it's a huge part of
13:21explaining why he is who he is. You see
13:24this happen with productivity a lot in
13:26our space, right? You you you've got
13:29>> oh god
13:29>> some guy who's I don't know he he writes
13:31like five books a year and has started
13:34six companies and I don't know he like
13:36wakes up at five and eats an upside down
13:39waffle or something and so everybody
13:41goes out and starts eating upside down
13:43waffles and and thinks that that's going
13:44to make them as su successful as this
13:47like random dude on YouTube. And the
13:48truth is is that the defining variables
13:51of success are often hidden from us.
13:55They're not apparent. And the things
13:56that are apparent are actually quite
13:59common. We're just not aware of the
14:01thousands of other people that share
14:03that trait but don't share the same
14:05success.
14:05>> Yeah. So, it's really just like a big
14:07humble brag for a lot of these people,
14:08right? They're like they're trying to
14:09pass these things off as failure, but
14:11really it's just part of their whole
14:13success story, which makes it still just
14:15another survivorship biased story of
14:18some kind. Right. And but we end up kind
14:20of fetishizing those failures that are
14:22just the bullet holes in the wings that
14:24on the planes that came back. Right.
14:25Right.
14:26>> And this this is kind of where failure
14:28porn came out of. And this actually came
14:30from a guy Jeff Lewis who himself was a
14:32founder uh of this uh company called
14:34Founders Fund. But he wrote this post in
14:362014, same year that Failcon failed. He
14:39wrote this in in the Washington Post.
14:41And he coined the term failure porn. And
14:43he's got this great quote in it. It
14:44says, uh, it's failure as fast fashion
14:47pedal by wildly successful people
14:49packaged for mass consumption that's no
14:51more reflective of real failure than
14:54commercially produced pornography is of
14:56real sex. [laughter] Very vivid vivid
14:59example there, right? He has his own
15:01little kind of failure porn story around
15:02this too with his his company. He was
15:04like $45,000 in credit card debt. He was
15:07going to pitch some people on his fund
15:10um one day and didn't have like the 20
15:11bucks to take a cab across town, so he
15:13had to walk on an empty stomach for 45
15:16minutes. And it was like he he calls one
15:18of his co-workers and was like, I I'm
15:20I'm such a failure. This isn't going to
15:22work. And he got this pep talk from his
15:24co-orker and everything. Went and did
15:25this pitch and they got funding and then
15:27turned it around and it was a
15:28multi-million dollar company. And you
15:30know, that's a failure porn story.
15:32That's not he's like the real failure
15:33would have been me just giving up there.
15:35This is just a low point in the story.
15:37It wasn't an actual failure.
15:39>> Yeah.
15:39>> And he said the problem with this is
15:40that we trivialize failure when we do
15:43this real failure. This article I should
15:46go read it. It's actually full of these
15:47great little lines in it. It says just
15:48as excessive consumption of pornography
15:51desensitizes a person to the joys of
15:53real sex, excessive consumption of
15:56failure porn desensitizes a person to
15:58the horrors of real failure. So the
16:01again, it's these survivorship bias
16:03stories.
16:04>> Yeah.
16:04>> Take away from the actual failures, the
16:07actual harm that's actually done by real
16:09failure.
16:10>> Well, it's funny cuz just in you
16:12recounting his story, I think you you
16:16described exactly what's wrong with all
16:19of these stories, which is when you said
16:21it, you said he was broke and and on his
16:23last legs and then he managed to get
16:26funding with his last pitch meeting or
16:28whatever and then went on to become
16:29successful. It's that went on to become
16:31successful.
16:32>> Yes,
16:32>> that's where actually all of the meat
16:34and and valuable information is,
16:37>> but it's not nearly as exciting or
16:40interesting as the failure porn. So, the
16:42failure porn is what gets shared. And
16:44it's funny, too. I was thinking like
16:46when we were prepping for this this
16:47episode, I was thinking about the
16:48failcon thing. I was thinking it would
16:52probably get really old fast if you are
16:54a struggling startup founder working 60
16:5770 hour weeks barely scraping by and
16:59year after year you get up and you hear
17:01these like the guy who started PayPal or
17:03the guy who started you know whatever
17:06get up and tell you these all these
17:09situations that they they were in at one
17:11point at a certain point it'd be like
17:13okay I get it like they struggled what
17:17did you do that worked right like
17:19>> yeah yeah It's not a complicated
17:20message.
17:21>> Yeah. I don't I don't I don't care what
17:22didn't work. Tell me what worked. Right.
17:24>> Exactly. Exactly. We've romanticized
17:27failure over the last 20 30 years to the
17:29point where it's like it almost doesn't
17:30mean anything.
17:31>> Why do you think that is though? Like
17:32why do you think we romanticize it?
17:34>> I think there's kind of a um a little
17:35bit of a selfattribution bias going on.
17:37So like your failures, you want to um
17:41kind of externalize them, right? And you
17:43want to internalize your successes. And
17:44I think part of it is is like, "Oh no,
17:46look at me. I went through all of this.
17:48I failed all this and I still came out
17:49the other side and look how look how
17:51strong I am
17:52>> strong I am successful I am
17:53>> look how gritty I am look how you know I
17:56think there is kind of like a it's a
17:57humble brag
17:58>> we've talked on previous episodes yeah
18:00how we we tend to our memories tend to
18:03package things in ways that like exalt
18:05ourselves a little bit
18:06>> you don't want to attribute it to luck
18:07either the luck episode like like saying
18:10oh I got lucky in this that doesn't feel
18:11good when it's like actually yeah a lot
18:13of other people did the exact same
18:15things as you and you came out on top
18:16maybe you just got lucky like instead
18:18you say, "No, no, no. I went through
18:19look at all the hardship I went through.
18:21Look at all this [ __ ] that I waited
18:22through."
18:23>> I actually went and researched how many
18:25other microprocessor companies there
18:27were at the same time as Apple and there
18:30were like dozens dozens and dozens and
18:32dozens and dozens. And it it was really
18:33interesting. They all they all failed
18:35and they all had like similar stories
18:38and story arcs and made similar
18:39decisions. And the human mind thinks in
18:41terms of narratives. When you are
18:43constructing a narrative, you always
18:44need to have some sort of obstacle or
18:46>> setback.
18:47>> Yeah. The three act story arc, huh?
18:50>> Yeah. It's it's just the way our brains
18:52work. I think it is very natural that
18:54>> we look at a highly complex long-term
18:58project or path and we just simplify it
19:01into,
19:02>> yeah, I was down on my luck. All these
19:03things went wrong, but I fought through
19:05it. I learned. I survived and now I'm
19:07successful. Right? Like that's just kind
19:09of I think our default narrative that we
19:11like to package around things. And also
19:13like narratives make things feel
19:15meaningful. Like if I was really honest
19:17about my success and like the amount of
19:19luck and circumstance that was involved
19:21in it, it would feel less meaningful to
19:24me. And I I do think that we are biased
19:27towards generating something that feels
19:29very meaningful and and purposeful in
19:31our lives.
19:31>> Yeah. There's not a lot of lesson to be
19:32taken from luck, right? Something just
19:35lucky. So, we'd rather have a narrative
19:36that's a little bit cleaner and has some
19:38sort of struggle in it that we could
19:40identify with.
19:40>> Are you susceptible to failure porn?
19:42>> Oh, man. That that whole Michael Jordan
19:44story, man, when especially when I was a
19:46kid, that was like, oh yeah, you know,
19:48he's he's just he's got all that grit
19:49and he's he's he he won't give up, you
19:51know, never give up and he's just got to
19:53fight through all the failures and
19:54getting cut from the team, all of that.
19:56Oh, dude, I bought into that big time.
19:58In the 2010s, you really did see this,
20:00too. You really did. Out there was like,
20:01no, no, no, like fail fail fast. What
20:04was the Facebook? Um,
20:06>> move fast and break things. Fast and
20:07break things. That whole thing.
20:08Everybody got caught up in that.
20:09>> Yeah. How'd that turn out? [laughter]
20:11>> Yeah. Right. Right.
20:13>> It's very seductive. It's very
20:14seductive.
20:15>> Yeah. Yeah.
20:16>> Everybody, you know, especially
20:17Americans, we love an underdog, too.
20:18Right. So, somebody who's down on their
20:20luck and down and out, no, they came
20:22back from it. That's a That's a great
20:23arc. So, I get asked all the time, would
20:26I change anything about subtle art? And
20:28generally, my answer is no. But it's
20:31funny the this episode, it made me kind
20:34of think back to that chapter. I'm like,
20:36"O yeah, I kind of it was a little
20:39simplistic." The depth that we're going
20:41to go into in this episode is
20:44much more thorough than what's written
20:46there. I mean, I I do think the general
20:48lesson is in that you do have to make
20:50mistake like everybody makes mistakes,
20:52everybody fails, and that's the fuel for
20:54learning and growth. I do think that is
20:56true, but I also I also think that that
20:59is a bit of a simplistic way to look at
21:01it. There's a lot more going on under
21:03the hood than just simply like, oh, I
21:05tried a thing and it didn't work. What
21:07can I learn from it?
21:09>> Yeah. Like that's our surface level
21:10experience, but there's some deeper
21:12questions in terms of like how are you
21:14defining success and failure?
21:16>> Who are you choosing to be in that
21:18pursuit? Are you defining failures in
21:20ways that you you are actually going to
21:21be comfortable with? like that. That's
21:23actually way more interesting. And
21:24that's some of the stuff that we're
21:25going to get into here. Hold that
21:27thought. We've got a quick message from
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23:04code solved. All right, we're back.
23:06Where were we?
23:07>> What we're calling kind of the old way
23:09of looking at failure too, though, which
23:11was more just like, oh, you're a
23:14failure. like people, you know, people
23:16saying I'm a failure or taking it so
23:19personally or overidentifying with it.
23:21Obviously, that's not good. We wanted to
23:23get away from that. But what we're
23:24saying is maybe we overshot a little bit
23:26too far the other way.
23:27>> Yeah. Yeah. Do Do we want to call this
23:29like a a Hegelian synthesis, right? So,
23:32aren't you aren't you excited for that?
23:33>> Do we want to call it that?
23:35>> Of course we do. [laughter]
23:36>> Of course we do. This is solved.
23:38>> Where we where we over philosophize
23:40everything.
23:41>> Yeah. So I know what a Hegelian
23:42synthesis is, but why don't you go ahead
23:43and explain to everybody else what that
23:45[laughter] means?
23:46>> George Friedrich Hegel, the German
23:48philosopher, the idealist philosopher
23:50from the 19th century, he said a lot of
23:52things, but one of the things that stuck
23:53interestingly, he didn't actually write
23:55it, but like people later attributed it
23:57to him. So they call it a Hegelian
23:59synthesis, which is that basically
24:00thought and information progresses in
24:02like a a pretty standard pattern, which
24:04is that you have a thesis of how the
24:06world works or something that's true.
24:08you have an antithesis which is the
24:10contradiction or or an alternative
24:12hypothesis and then what generally
24:14happens is a synthesis of those two
24:17viewpoints. It's not that one of those
24:20two things is right. It's usually some
24:22synthesis of the two points of view that
24:25wins out and becomes the next thesis and
24:27develops its own antithesis. That was
24:29like the progression of history and and
24:31knowledge in his in his view. The
24:34Hegelian dialectic of failure would be
24:36that the the old school version of
24:38failure was that it was this horrible
24:41shameful thing and that you should hide
24:43your failures from people and you should
24:45avoid trying anything that you're going
24:46to potentially fail. That's kind of like
24:48our default approach towards failure.
24:50The antithesis of that is that failure
24:53should be celebrated, that it should be
24:55encouraged, that we should, you know,
24:57support people in their failures, which
25:00sounds nice if you've if you've got a
25:02startup and are trying to like find
25:04investors, but I don't know, like go
25:06talk to a methhead or uh like somebody
25:09in an abusive relationship. That's not a
25:11message you you want to be generalizing
25:13out to the broader populace. So you
25:16could say that this podcast we are
25:19attempting a synthesis of the two views,
25:22a more holistic view of failure and how
25:25to approach it in your own life and how
25:27to how to benefit from it. The important
25:29thing here, the reason why we're kind of
25:32[ __ ] on this positive view of
25:35failure is that the data is in and it
25:40doesn't really help.
25:41>> Mhm. We've taken the last few decades to
25:44figure that out [laughter] too, right?
25:47There is this kind of weird paradox
25:48where if you go out and you talk to
25:50people, they'll tell you just like in
25:51the business world, let's say, it's
25:53easier than ever to start a business,
25:54right? And yet people are more afraid to
25:56start a business than ever. This is
25:58right after all of these this 20 years
26:00of failure worship has come out of the
26:02culture, right? And yet people are still
26:06>> more riskaverse than ever.
26:07>> Still more riskaverse than ever. Like
26:09just some stats like basically one in
26:10two Americans say they would fear
26:13starting a business because of the fear
26:15of failure because it might fail. Half
26:17of all people around the world too
26:19they've done these surveys um every year
26:21and the share of people uh agreeing that
26:24starting a business is easy. That
26:26climbed to almost 60%. And yet again
26:29almost one in two people all around the
26:31world say they're afraid of failing in
26:34one of these ventures even though it's
26:35easier than ever. So the message didn't
26:37stick basically, right? You could
26:39actually argue that things got even
26:42worse. We didn't get more comfortable
26:44with failure, right? We probably got
26:46less than what actually happened here,
26:47right? What was actually going on? One
26:49of the big things that I found anyway
26:51through all this is that um
26:52perfectionism actually seems to be
26:55becoming more and more of a problem. If
26:57people were actually taking this to
26:58heart, if they were taking this advice,
27:00this failure worship to heart, what you
27:02would probably see is actually less
27:03perfectionism out there. But we see the
27:05exact opposite of that in all these
27:07different studies. Now, before I jump
27:09into that though, real quick, there's
27:10two different kinds of perfectionism
27:12that researchers kind of two broad
27:14buckets that they can sort it into,
27:16right? One is what they call
27:17perfectionistic strivings. Okay, this is
27:19when you hold high standards and you you
27:22are aiming for success. This is
27:24basically fine uh as long as you don't
27:26like take it too far. You're really just
27:28like, I have high standards and I want
27:30to I want to hit those. But you don't
27:31take it too personally when you don't
27:32hit them. Okay, contrast that with
27:34perfectionistic concerns, which is the
27:37more kind of toxic form of perfectionism
27:39that people can have, which is basically
27:42you're holding yourself to a very high
27:43standard and if you don't hit that,
27:45there's something very wrong with you or
27:47the world or whatever, right? That is
27:50actually associated with more like
27:52mental health problems even to
27:54depression, anxiety, less well-being
27:56that you have with that. Okay? What they
27:58found is if you kind of control for
27:59those concerns, if you if you you can
28:01parse all of that out, if you just have
28:04this like striving perfectionism where
28:06you're like, I want things to be better
28:08and I'm going to aim for them and it's
28:09okay if I don't hit them, but I'm going
28:10to continue to aim for them and strive
28:12for them. That seems to be okay. That
28:14seems to be fine. It's when we get into
28:15that more toxic form of perfectionism
28:17that the wheels start to fall off a
28:19little bit. Okay. When we actually look
28:21at the numbers too, over the last 20 to
28:2330 years across all the countries that
28:25celebrate failure the most, mostly the
28:27anglophere, right? United States, UK,
28:30Canada, Australia, New Zealand, those
28:32places, we all celebrate failure a whole
28:34bunch. Perfectionism has actually risen
28:36and the toxic kinds of perfectionism
28:38have risen the most. Even too, they've
28:40done some studies um from the late 2010s
28:42up to today and they see that this trend
28:45is just accelerating. It's not getting
28:47any better. They've basically concluded
28:48that, and this is a quote, young people
28:50perceive that others are more demanding
28:51of them. They are more demanding of
28:53others and more demanding of themselves.
28:56Like people are holding us to higher
28:57standards, we're holding oursel to
28:58higher standards, and we're holding
28:59other people to higher standards all at
29:01the same time. Like all of that is going
29:02up when really probably none of that is
29:05actually true.
29:06>> Okay?
29:06>> And yet that's against the backdrop of,
29:09hey, it's okay to fail. Go out there and
29:10fail. Nobody cares. Give it your best
29:12shot and it's going to be okay. And yet
29:14we have this rise imperfectionism and
29:17rise of these ungodly standards that we
29:20put on ourselves during that. So what's
29:22going on here?
29:23>> I hate to be that guy.
29:24>> Yeah.
29:25>> But I think it's the phones.
29:26>> You think it's the phones?
29:27>> I think it's the phones.
29:28>> You think it's the phones?
29:29>> It did. The trend started before the
29:31phones. I think it accelerated with the
29:32phones.
29:33>> It could be the internet. I mean the
29:34difference between say our adolescence
29:37and kids today. You know, when we were
29:40growing up, if you asked a girl out and
29:42she shot you down, nobody remembered.
29:45Nobody saw it.
29:46>> Or I remember.
29:49>> Nobody else remembered. Nobody else saw
29:51it.
29:51>> Um, you know, if if you made a huge
29:54mistake in front of the class or you did
29:56something really embarrassing or you got
29:57kicked out of school or whatever, now
29:59everything is documented. There are
30:00consequences to every failure that
30:03exists today in a way that didn't exist
30:05before. And and I actually think that
30:07there's some usefulness of forgetting. I
30:11was reading about uh Walt Disney
30:13recently and it was super fascinating in
30:16that he came from a family of failed
30:18entrepreneurs and he himself was a
30:20failed entrepreneur like what what today
30:22we know as Disney was like his I think
30:25his third or fourth business that he
30:26started and his father started a bunch
30:28of businesses that failed and his uncle
30:29started a bunch of businesses that
30:31failed. And it was funny because what
30:33happened back in those days is you would
30:35start a business, it would fail, you go
30:36into a bunch of debt and you just pack
30:38your [ __ ] up and go to the next town
30:40because nobody in the next town knew
30:42that you failed,
30:43>> right? And so you could start over, you
30:45could get new new investments or get a
30:47new loan and start a new business. And
30:49so the the Disneys would kind of like
30:51bounce from town to town around the
30:53Midwest trying all these different
30:55ventures, watching them fail
30:57spectacularly and then like just kind of
31:00moving on and not not having it track
31:03with them. Whereas today, if something
31:05like calamitous happens at one of your
31:07jobs, it's going to be online forever,
31:10right? There's going to be a record of
31:11it potentially forever. People are
31:13always going to have access either to
31:15your old workplace or your old boss or
31:18your old LinkedIn profile or something
31:20you wrote like 14 years ago. It's like
31:22comedians getting cancelled for tweets
31:25that they wrote in 2008. You know, like
31:27there's just there's a record today that
31:30follows you that didn't exist in
31:32previous generations. Even if people are
31:35more accepting of failure in the moment,
31:38which I agree with you, I don't think
31:39they are these days. Even if they were,
31:43the fact that that moment is now going
31:45to follow you for decades across your
31:47life means that you have to wait it so
31:49much higher than you would have
31:52otherwise.
31:53>> Yeah. I mean, I guess I do remember, you
31:54know, when social media started to be a
31:56thing and we had to be warned like, hey,
31:58watch what you put online. Now thinking,
32:00I mean, that's like now you just don't
32:02even do it because you can't even help
32:03if it gets online or not. Yeah. I mean,
32:05I remember so to your point about it
32:08being maybe before the phones, I
32:09remember when I was
32:10>> single in my 20s and it it started to
32:12become a thing about like googling the
32:14people you were going on dates with
32:16because you would
32:17>> sometimes you would find like some
32:18pretty crazy [ __ ] I just imagine that
32:20that's like 10xed.
32:22>> These two researchers, Kieran and Hill,
32:23they give some other reasons as well. Um
32:25well like one of them being just kind of
32:26the structural competition
32:28especially like in capitalist societies
32:31like competition in the markets got so
32:33crazy and that just kind of bled into
32:35all the other uh areas of life. getting
32:37into a good university or something like
32:38that that all of a sudden became super
32:40super important and like doing your your
32:43application by committee, you know, and
32:44having your whole family or getting
32:46tutors or that really took off in the
32:49last, you know, 20 to 30 years as well.
32:51Like the competition, intense
32:52competition around those sorts of things
32:55happened. At the same time too, they're
32:57talking about the collectivist
32:59institutions that we used to have where
33:00some of that would get diffused,
33:02>> right? some of that kind of tension of
33:03your failures or whatever in your church
33:05or your whatever communities you were in
33:07church temples whatever you were going
33:09to those are not you know it's it's much
33:12more individualistic like
33:13hyperindividualism has contributed to a
33:15very competitive
33:17>> life not just marketplace but life
33:19>> and people are by and large lonier so
33:21they have less of a support system right
33:23so they have fewer friends or family
33:25members close to them that they can rely
33:26upon if they do screw up or if something
33:28does go wrong it's interesting because
33:30what we're talking about it
33:32not about people's philosophical
33:34acceptance of failure. It is more about
33:37the stakes that are involved, right?
33:40Like when you remove so social and
33:42emotional safety nets, when you make
33:45everything more competitive, and when
33:47you add a historical record that follows
33:50you for pretty much your entire life,
33:52and you can't get rid of it, what that
33:54does is it just puts so much more
33:56importance on each action and behavior
33:59that in a way that did not exist
34:01certainly 30 years ago, but definitely
34:02not like a hundred years ago.
34:03>> One other thing they bring up too is um
34:05like anxious and controlling parenting.
34:08There's some debate around this. um they
34:09their their studies have been questioned
34:11a little bit, but you do see it on at
34:13least an individual level like kids who
34:15do come from households where the
34:16parents are very controlling and you
34:18know expect a lot. They have very high
34:20rates of this toxic perfectionism as
34:22well. Whether that's pervasive across
34:24the culture or not, I'm not sure, but
34:26that can definitely if you're one of
34:27those people that can definitely have a
34:29big uh big impact as well.
34:31>> Shout out to all of our Asian listeners
34:32right now.
34:33>> Right. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. So,
34:36perfectionism is rising. We see that it
34:39is really worse amongst young people
34:40too. This is where we have the most data
34:42too. We don't have as much data for
34:43older people, but it is worse amongst uh
34:45young people. Half of all teenagers all
34:48around the world, they fear uh judgment
34:50for failing in some way. They they
34:52report that they say when they're
34:53failing, they worry about what others
34:55might think of them, which you know,
34:56okay, that's teenagers. I get that. But
34:58>> but the risk of the stats of risk
35:00aversion are so high right now.
35:01>> They're so high. They're accelerating
35:03like I was saying, right?
35:04>> Kids are not asking each other out.
35:05They're not taking risks. They're not
35:06going out. They're not having sex.
35:08They're not even learning to drive at
35:10the same rates that they used to. So,
35:11it's yeah, there's a lot of risk
35:12aversion going on.
35:13>> One really interesting thing we found
35:15though, too, and a lot of people think
35:17that, well, I'm just not as good as
35:19these people, and so of course I'm
35:20afraid of failure or whatever. An
35:22interesting thing we found was actually
35:24that the fear of failure is often times
35:26the worst amongst the highest achievers.
35:29So people out there who are actually
35:30already doing the straight A students,
35:32you know, the ones that are doing all
35:33the clubs, the ones that are out there
35:34achieving, looking like they're, you
35:36know, having a great time, they're
35:38actually the ones who are the most
35:39afraid of failure,
35:41>> which is fascinating. I feel like so
35:44many people use fear or failure as an
35:46excuse for not doing the thing. Whereas
35:48it's like, okay, the people who are
35:50actually out there doing the thing and
35:51they're doing it well are more afraid
35:54than you are.
35:54>> Right. And we're going to find out why
35:55that is here in a little bit, too. What
35:57would you say is your relationship with
35:58failure? Because I know you've you've
36:00struggled with perfectionism. Yeah.
36:01Quite a bit throughout your life.
36:03>> Yeah. I um I I wanted to come in here
36:05and say, well, you know, like I don't
36:07the failures I do have, I don't see them
36:08as failures. But then I I think about
36:10the perfection. I have some toxic
36:12perfectionism. What it ends up doing is
36:15it makes you not take a lot of the risks
36:18that that you would want to take or just
36:20like I don't know, go and find it out.
36:22Like I look I look at some of the stuff
36:24you do and you're just like we're going
36:25to try this and it's it's didn't work.
36:27Let's just keep moving. You know, I
36:29don't think you're anyone to dwell on
36:31that and I I dwell on stuff, man. I
36:34dwell on stuff for sure. It does cost me
36:37a lot in terms of Yeah. in terms of the
36:40outcomes that I've I've seen. I just
36:42haven't taken some of the bigger swings
36:43that I probably would have because of
36:45that.
36:45>> Do you think some of that is that you
36:47grew up with higher stakes? cuz like I
36:49know like my wife grew up pretty poor
36:52and like
36:53>> ah
36:53>> the margin for error when she was young
36:55was just very slim. So so she's
36:58developed I think she has kind of
36:59evolved into a person that is just very
37:01wary of of risking failure.
37:03>> Yeah. And I think if if you do come from
37:05that kind of background and the way you
37:06got out of it was by through performance
37:10that puts a lot of weight on performance
37:12then right like I I got out of that
37:14through school and you know the
37:16activities that I was involved in that
37:17were that contributed to my education
37:19and all of that. And so you learn that
37:22oh in order to not have to go back into
37:25that world or not be in a more
37:27precarious state you have to perform.
37:30you have there's something you have to
37:31do or be or whatever it is and that
37:35Yeah, I bet a lot of people can identify
37:36with that.
37:37>> I'm a weirdo. I'm definitely I I think
37:39I'm somebody that are in a lot of ways,
37:42Mark. [laughter]
37:43You really are.
37:45>> I I I think this is one area where I'm
37:47not relatable. I think I'm really good
37:48with this just because I mean I'm not I
37:51I don't give a [ __ ] right? Like I just
37:52I I genuinely don't like it really I
37:55mean you've seen this for years. It
37:57really doesn't bother me like launching
37:59something that fails or putting
38:01something out there that bombs or, you
38:04know, saying something that gets me a
38:06thousand angry email. Like, I'm just
38:08kind of water off my back, you know? And
38:11it it's interesting because when I was
38:13younger, I spent a lot of time kind of
38:14thinking about where that comes from.
38:17And I've got all sorts of narratives and
38:19explanations, you know, growing up in
38:21kind of a weird environment
38:23>> that I I felt I always felt like a black
38:24sheep where I grew up. My dad's a lot
38:26more kind of rigid and perfectionist
38:29than I am. But my grandfather, I mean,
38:32you talk about not giving a [ __ ] Like
38:33it was he started seven companies. He
38:36became a millionaire three times, went
38:37bankrupt three times. And according to
38:40my dad, he said if you if you saw him,
38:44you would never know which end of the
38:46pendulum he was on. Like you could never
38:48tell. It didn't bother him.
38:50>> He didn't care. And I've I've felt that
38:52way, too. like I've I've lost a lot of
38:54money on some stupid decisions and it
38:57actually freaked me out how much it
38:58didn't bother me.
38:59>> There is there any area of your life
39:01where you identify failure that either
39:04you did or didn't learn from or like is
39:06there any particular area?
39:09>> I've thought about this in terms of
39:10regrets. So like I I generally don't
39:12regret many things and and what I the
39:16thing I would point to the things that
39:18like I do feel say dwell on or I feel
39:22like some degree of shame or guilt it's
39:24when I I feel like I have failed people.
39:26>> Yeah. Yeah.
39:27>> So if if it's just me and if it's like
39:30just my money or my stuff I really don't
39:34seem to care. Like I'm I'm good, you
39:37know? I could sleep on this concrete
39:38floor tomorrow. Like it's fine. If I
39:41feel like I failed somebody I really
39:42care about like that that eats at me for
39:44a long time.
39:45>> We're gonna get into some of that then.
39:47Uh
39:47>> oh.
39:47>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh
39:48>> oh.
39:48>> Yeah. Yeah.
39:49>> Oh. Am I Am I getting on the sofa this
39:51this episode?
39:52>> No. No. No. No. No. No.
39:53>> I mean, yes. But [laughter]
39:56>> we'll we'll get into why that might be.
39:58I think
39:58>> Yeah. This hints at where we're going
40:00with this episode and that I don't
40:03actually see most of my failures as
40:05failures. The crux of what we're going
40:08to get into is that failure is actually
40:11more of a definitional problem than it
40:14is an actual problem. Like the fact that
40:17you are failing at things in your life
40:19is not really the problem.
40:22The real problem, if there is one, is
40:24how you've chosen to define failure for
40:26yourself and and how you've chosen to
40:28measure yourself. And that's actually
40:31where we're going to end up going with
40:32this starting with the next chapter. But
40:34to understand that and really have an
40:37appreciation for it, we do need to get
40:40into some of the evolutionary mechanisms
40:43behind our sense of failure, the
40:46feelings and emotions that come along
40:47with it, the social repercussions that
40:49are associated with it, and why
40:52something like an embarrassing email or
40:55uh getting shot down by somebody you
40:58have a crush on feels like [ __ ] death
41:00in the moment. like just makes you want
41:03to crawl in a hole and never come out
41:05again. Like why does that happen? Why
41:06does it hurt so much?
41:08>> Why does failure hurt so bad?
41:09>> Why is it so hard sometimes? And and the
41:12important thing is is that the answer it
41:15it's not just your childhood. It it's
41:18not a mindset. It's not it's not about
41:22learning, you know, finding the silver
41:24lining and things like sure all of those
41:26things matter at the margins, but really
41:30we're going to go way back and we're
41:32going to go back two million years and
41:34and look at some of the biological
41:37machinery that's going on behind the
41:39scenes and and try to get a deeper
41:41understanding of why all these things
41:43happen. So, stick around.
41:49Hey everybody, thank you for watching
41:51chapter 1 of failure solved. Chapter two
41:55is going to get much more into why
41:56failure hurts so much and why we
41:58struggle to deal with it. So every few
42:00days we drop another chapter here on the
42:02YouTube channel. So subscribe if you
42:04want those to keep showing up on your
42:06feed. And if you don't want to wait, the
42:07full episode is already up on the
42:09channel with the link in the
42:10description. Before you go, we put
42:11together a free PDF guide with all the
42:13research, citations, and exercises from
42:16this episode. You can find it at
42:17solvepodcast.comfailure.
42:20I'll see you in the next one.

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