7 ms·

I don't agree with this article and this culture of making failure a beautiful thing. A Failure is a failure. When people fail, a lot of things go bad. Many of

I don't agree with this article and this culture of making failure a beautiful thing. A Failure is a failure. When people fail, a lot of things go bad. Many of them get depressive, they go through a lot. It's like saying that having abusive parents make you a strong person. Completely bullshit. I doubt this has any positive effect on "setting somebody up" for success. It is much easier to be successful if you don't mess it up. For most of the world, people aren't even allowed to fail once.

8ytecoder 7y ago
I agree failure is a failure but not that it's bad. Failure is neither good nor bad by itself. I think it's important to learn that a failure is not a reason to hate yourself - which is what usually feeds the depression. It's not constructive to dwell on the failure. It's necessary in fact to find out what the learning is and then see what strategies exist to minimize harm. That's not glorifying it in anyway. Falling down, for example, is not a beautiful thing but it's imperative to learn to get up - otherwise, what's the alternative? The article seem to make the claim that setbacks train your mind to accept failure as part of the process and not treat it any differently. What's wrong in that? There's no need to be a contrarian in everything.
- nishantvyas 7y ago
  +1. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” - Dr Brene Brown. Failure treated as a guilt may lead to learning and be fixed, but if treated as Shame may lead to depression.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    I get your point, but this is a bit simplistic. One also has to realize when a game is full out rigged — you did your best (perhaps the best) and you still failed because perhaps success wasn’t allowed for you. Then you need to learn to play a different game. Sort of like when college failures end up as leaders and go into tell everyone to work hard because obviously that is what is stopping everyone else /s
majos 7y ago
There's a spectrum between "I failed -- awesome!" and "I failed -- I will stop trying". I think articles like this are trying to push us away from the second end of the spectrum, not necessarily push us to the first.
- Tobani 7y ago
  There's also an art to realizing you've failed (or are going to fail), and making the best outcome possible from it. Many things don't work out the way you expect them to first time. Things may initially be "failures," but maybe ultimately be some form of "success."
- mcguire 7y ago
  But failure can also be a message that you're doing the wrong thing.
sndean 7y ago
> It's like saying that having abusive parents make you a strong person. Completely bullshit. The population being investigated is significantly smaller than that, though. Specifically, it's people with STEM PhDs, and everything that comes along with that: Likely from a wealthier than average family, performed extremely well in school (at least in their area of interest), etc. And they're in a position to write a grant proposal, which requires a good deal of confidence. So, among those extremely successful and intelligent people who are very confident and likely never experienced much hardship at all, if you experience a setback you may be better off in the long run.
ehnto 7y ago
It is useful to learn to expect and deal with failure. It is also useful to read about people who have failed yet succeeded in the end, you can learn from it. Obviously it's not absolute that a failure is positive as much as it isn't absolute that failure is damning. One thing is certain though, try hard enough and you can fail at pretty much anything, so you better get ready to deal with a failure or two if you are trying to be successful.
steve76 7y ago
So far, the world is telling you we tried it before and it didn't work, with EVERYTHING! Plenty of rich and industries people, in the graveyard. The world will guide you if you listen. A lot of knowledge is kept under wraps due to security clearance, as in, they already have the answers, but just can't tell you because it's either really dangerous or really horrifying. It's best to follow where you are lead, and if you mess up, just think it's for a reason. The world doesn't want you to do that. Maybe later. Maybe not ever. Start listening more and adjust.
zeroxfe 7y ago
> It's like saying that having abusive parents make you a strong person. Completely bullshit. I don't get this analogy at all. Failure falls on a pretty broad spectrum, from minor setbacks to complete catastrophes. IME, failures across a wide center of that spectrum are really valuable (if you choose to learn from them), with the left being not very useful, and the right being disastrous. Ideally, one doesn't take so much risk that their failures fall on the right. Personally, I feel like most of my wins today are consequences of my past failures.
Aloha 7y ago
Failure is also normal, and common - and frankly every healthy adult needs to learn how to cope with failure. Modern childhood seems to go out of its way to isolate children from feelings of failure and learning healthy coping mechanisms thereof. With this in mind, its probably helpful to learn the sting of failure earlier rather than later in your career.
technofiend 7y ago
A failure is a failure, but it can also be a learning experience. I was once forced into a failure because despite my protests my employer sold a solution that was no longer vendor supported. The sales person didn't want to hear it, the business owner didn't want to hear it. They just wanted to make the sale. By the time I spent months trying to fix what couldn't be fixed the former marine business owner gave me some "come back with your shield or on it" speech to go out and fix the problem or else. I tried to fix the problem but couldn't and chose or else, i.e. I quit. I learned to document everything in writing so that I have a paper trail for later. Fortunately it didn't come to a lawsuit from the unhappy customer but it got close. Having everything documented so it was 100% clear I never wanted to sell the system and spent scads of time trying to fix it anyway, not to mention communication from the vendor saying "It work won't and we told you it won't work" would have made life much easier for me if it came to discovery.
- chasd00 7y ago
  failure is a weird word, it can mean all kinds of things. I can fail to get up on time for example. i wouldn't consider What happened to you a failure, that's just work. Wrong decisions happen all day every day in all kinds of businesses. What part of the experience would you consider the "failure"? The only thing i can think of is just lack of experience for that particular situation. I wouldn't qualify lack of experience as failure. A failure to me is not delivering what you promised with it being in your full control to do so. But, like i said, failure can mean all kinds of things.
  - technofiend 7y ago
    Yeah it was more failure to protect myself, really. I was 18 at the time and still early in my work career.
distant_hat 7y ago
There's another thing about this article. They are comparing near misses with narrow wins. At that point, the near miss vs narrow win might be put down to luck, and people who had a near miss might learn from it and work harder. People who had a huge loss might drop out completely or change careers or so on but they are not being talked about here.
overcast 7y ago
Having abusive parents is not your failure. That analogy does not work.
ljm 7y ago
Maybe it’s just the choice of words, but a failure that presents an opportunity to learn is great! But it’s true that there are many kinds of failure where that attitude is completely impermissible. You know, the life or death stuff, or the illegal stuff. In the cases where the stakes aren’t so high, then we’re just talking about compassion and not being a complete jerk to someone who fucked up. But it’s absolutely necessary to come up with an actionable follow up if you do this. That’s where the success is. Just throwing up your hands and saying “awww gee, I done did it all wrong!” and letting the opportunity slip by is a great way to encourage even more failure, and not the useful kind. That is to say, it’s gotta be failure with some self-imposed accountability.
OnlineCourage 7y ago
Failure is not a binary 1 or 0 thing. There are at least 256 levels. If your failure was down to 193 in the first decade of your career, you may be better off over three decades than soneone who was consistently at 240 in the first decade and later went down to 170 in the second decade, because you may have greater information exposure, it all depends on what happened. Also...please define failure?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Yes and there is another dimension also! Failure is a vector, you can fail on your career progression but succeed on health, happiness, family, meaning, doing right to others. I can count exactly zero people ive met who have succeeded in all four categories. You choose where to fail, and how much to fail on a spectrum in order to succeed on other dimensions.

8ytecoder 7y ago

I agree failure is a failure but not that it's bad. Failure is neither good nor bad by itself. I think it's important to learn that a failure is not a reason to hate yourself - which is what usually feeds the depression. It's not constructive to dwell on the failure. It's necessary in fact to find out what the learning is and then see what strategies exist to minimize harm. That's not glorifying it in anyway. Falling down, for example, is not a beautiful thing but it's imperative to learn to get up - otherwise, what's the alternative? The article seem to make the claim that setbacks train your mind to accept failure as part of the process and not treat it any differently. What's wrong in that? There's no need to be a contrarian in everything.

nishantvyas 7y ago
+1. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” - Dr Brene Brown. Failure treated as a guilt may lead to learning and be fixed, but if treated as Shame may lead to depression.
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  I get your point, but this is a bit simplistic. One also has to realize when a game is full out rigged — you did your best (perhaps the best) and you still failed because perhaps success wasn’t allowed for you. Then you need to learn to play a different game. Sort of like when college failures end up as leaders and go into tell everyone to work hard because obviously that is what is stopping everyone else /s

majos 7y ago

There's a spectrum between "I failed -- awesome!" and "I failed -- I will stop trying". I think articles like this are trying to push us away from the second end of the spectrum, not necessarily push us to the first.

Tobani 7y ago
There's also an art to realizing you've failed (or are going to fail), and making the best outcome possible from it. Many things don't work out the way you expect them to first time. Things may initially be "failures," but maybe ultimately be some form of "success."
mcguire 7y ago
But failure can also be a message that you're doing the wrong thing.

sndean 7y ago

> It's like saying that having abusive parents make you a strong person. Completely bullshit. The population being investigated is significantly smaller than that, though. Specifically, it's people with STEM PhDs, and everything that comes along with that: Likely from a wealthier than average family, performed extremely well in school (at least in their area of interest), etc. And they're in a position to write a grant proposal, which requires a good deal of confidence. So, among those extremely successful and intelligent people who are very confident and likely never experienced much hardship at all, if you experience a setback you may be better off in the long run.

ehnto 7y ago

It is useful to learn to expect and deal with failure. It is also useful to read about people who have failed yet succeeded in the end, you can learn from it. Obviously it's not absolute that a failure is positive as much as it isn't absolute that failure is damning. One thing is certain though, try hard enough and you can fail at pretty much anything, so you better get ready to deal with a failure or two if you are trying to be successful.

steve76 7y ago

So far, the world is telling you we tried it before and it didn't work, with EVERYTHING! Plenty of rich and industries people, in the graveyard. The world will guide you if you listen. A lot of knowledge is kept under wraps due to security clearance, as in, they already have the answers, but just can't tell you because it's either really dangerous or really horrifying. It's best to follow where you are lead, and if you mess up, just think it's for a reason. The world doesn't want you to do that. Maybe later. Maybe not ever. Start listening more and adjust.

zeroxfe 7y ago

> It's like saying that having abusive parents make you a strong person. Completely bullshit. I don't get this analogy at all. Failure falls on a pretty broad spectrum, from minor setbacks to complete catastrophes. IME, failures across a wide center of that spectrum are really valuable (if you choose to learn from them), with the left being not very useful, and the right being disastrous. Ideally, one doesn't take so much risk that their failures fall on the right. Personally, I feel like most of my wins today are consequences of my past failures.

Aloha 7y ago

Failure is also normal, and common - and frankly every healthy adult needs to learn how to cope with failure. Modern childhood seems to go out of its way to isolate children from feelings of failure and learning healthy coping mechanisms thereof. With this in mind, its probably helpful to learn the sting of failure earlier rather than later in your career.

technofiend 7y ago

A failure is a failure, but it can also be a learning experience. I was once forced into a failure because despite my protests my employer sold a solution that was no longer vendor supported. The sales person didn't want to hear it, the business owner didn't want to hear it. They just wanted to make the sale. By the time I spent months trying to fix what couldn't be fixed the former marine business owner gave me some "come back with your shield or on it" speech to go out and fix the problem or else. I tried to fix the problem but couldn't and chose or else, i.e. I quit. I learned to document everything in writing so that I have a paper trail for later. Fortunately it didn't come to a lawsuit from the unhappy customer but it got close. Having everything documented so it was 100% clear I never wanted to sell the system and spent scads of time trying to fix it anyway, not to mention communication from the vendor saying "It work won't and we told you it won't work" would have made life much easier for me if it came to discovery.

chasd00 7y ago
failure is a weird word, it can mean all kinds of things. I can fail to get up on time for example. i wouldn't consider What happened to you a failure, that's just work. Wrong decisions happen all day every day in all kinds of businesses. What part of the experience would you consider the "failure"? The only thing i can think of is just lack of experience for that particular situation. I wouldn't qualify lack of experience as failure. A failure to me is not delivering what you promised with it being in your full control to do so. But, like i said, failure can mean all kinds of things.
- technofiend 7y ago
  Yeah it was more failure to protect myself, really. I was 18 at the time and still early in my work career.

distant_hat 7y ago

There's another thing about this article. They are comparing near misses with narrow wins. At that point, the near miss vs narrow win might be put down to luck, and people who had a near miss might learn from it and work harder. People who had a huge loss might drop out completely or change careers or so on but they are not being talked about here.

overcast 7y ago

Having abusive parents is not your failure. That analogy does not work.

ljm 7y ago

Maybe it’s just the choice of words, but a failure that presents an opportunity to learn is great! But it’s true that there are many kinds of failure where that attitude is completely impermissible. You know, the life or death stuff, or the illegal stuff. In the cases where the stakes aren’t so high, then we’re just talking about compassion and not being a complete jerk to someone who fucked up. But it’s absolutely necessary to come up with an actionable follow up if you do this. That’s where the success is. Just throwing up your hands and saying “awww gee, I done did it all wrong!” and letting the opportunity slip by is a great way to encourage even more failure, and not the useful kind. That is to say, it’s gotta be failure with some self-imposed accountability.

OnlineCourage 7y ago

Failure is not a binary 1 or 0 thing. There are at least 256 levels. If your failure was down to 193 in the first decade of your career, you may be better off over three decades than soneone who was consistently at 240 in the first decade and later went down to 170 in the second decade, because you may have greater information exposure, it all depends on what happened. Also...please define failure?

TuringNYC 7y ago
Yes and there is another dimension also! Failure is a vector, you can fail on your career progression but succeed on health, happiness, family, meaning, doing right to others. I can count exactly zero people ive met who have succeeded in all four categories. You choose where to fail, and how much to fail on a spectrum in order to succeed on other dimensions.