4 ms·

Failure also produces a lot of false negatives though, I've failed at a lot of things not because I was bad at them (though, lord knows I have enough failures b

Failure also produces a lot of false negatives though, I've failed at a lot of things not because I was bad at them (though, lord knows I have enough failures because of that), but because of bad luck, or bad instruction, or what have you.

billswift 14y ago
Failure is a better signal than success though. You can also succeed through luck and other mostly irrelevant circumstances; but if you are trying to succeed, then you only fail despite your efforts.
- argv_empty 14y ago
  Both cases still require examination of the situation to determine whether the success/failure is attributable to luck, skill, effort, etc.
protomyth 14y ago
But, most people can feel that. I knew I was going to do fine at programming despite the shaky start. It felt good and I was doing little things right. The problem is the distortion of your judgement from people who believe no one should fail (or excel really). It makes you not trust your own gut reaction.
awj 14y ago
Most of the people I've seen who were shielded from failure don't make this distinction. They attribute it to bad luck and don't learn anything or assume they're innately terrible and never try again. There's a fine line between teaching children to learn from failure and allowing failure to discourage them inappropriately. The solution is to walk it carefully, not stay so far away from it that people never learn to persevere.
- zzzeek 14y ago
  Thanks for making this point, amongst many posts looking down upon so-called "self-esteem" culture. I can't say if the methods being used today to give kids "self-esteem" are misguided and/or ineffective. But I can say that the entire point of true "self-esteem" is exactly so that failure is perceived as a learning experience and not a discouragement. Genuine self-esteem needs to be the backdrop, regardless of whether or not "medals and rewards for everyone" are entirely the wrong way to achieve that. Edit: I think what I'm trying to say is that there's a difference between self-esteem and self-entitlement.
rquantz 14y ago
Funny, I was going to throw some concurring examples from sports your way. "Michael Jorden was cut from his high school basketball team." "Yogi Berra was repeatedly denied a spot on a major league team." But in looking for citations, I seem to have disproven myself. Turns out, Jorden was never cut, he just didn't make varsity as a sophomore, like almost all sophomores, at least partly because, at 15, he was still under 6 feet tall. [1] As for Berra, the only reference I found was a claim on wikipedia that he was kept off the Cardinals by a team president who was moving to the Dodgers and was hoping to sign Berra there. [2] These examples certainly don't mean that there are no false negatives when it comes to failure, but I think it's interesting that these two famous stories about great players overcoming early adversity are bunk. It is probably the case that most people start out not being so good at something, then gradually get better, with any early success compounding over time. [1] http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/11/the-man-who-cut-michael-jordan-in-high-school-sort-of/ http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/11/the-man-wh... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

billswift 14y ago

Failure is a better signal than success though. You can also succeed through luck and other mostly irrelevant circumstances; but if you are trying to succeed, then you only fail despite your efforts.

argv_empty 14y ago
Both cases still require examination of the situation to determine whether the success/failure is attributable to luck, skill, effort, etc.

protomyth 14y ago

But, most people can feel that. I knew I was going to do fine at programming despite the shaky start. It felt good and I was doing little things right. The problem is the distortion of your judgement from people who believe no one should fail (or excel really). It makes you not trust your own gut reaction.

awj 14y ago

Most of the people I've seen who were shielded from failure don't make this distinction. They attribute it to bad luck and don't learn anything or assume they're innately terrible and never try again. There's a fine line between teaching children to learn from failure and allowing failure to discourage them inappropriately. The solution is to walk it carefully, not stay so far away from it that people never learn to persevere.

zzzeek 14y ago
Thanks for making this point, amongst many posts looking down upon so-called "self-esteem" culture. I can't say if the methods being used today to give kids "self-esteem" are misguided and/or ineffective. But I can say that the entire point of true "self-esteem" is exactly so that failure is perceived as a learning experience and not a discouragement. Genuine self-esteem needs to be the backdrop, regardless of whether or not "medals and rewards for everyone" are entirely the wrong way to achieve that. Edit: I think what I'm trying to say is that there's a difference between self-esteem and self-entitlement.

rquantz 14y ago

Funny, I was going to throw some concurring examples from sports your way. "Michael Jorden was cut from his high school basketball team." "Yogi Berra was repeatedly denied a spot on a major league team." But in looking for citations, I seem to have disproven myself. Turns out, Jorden was never cut, he just didn't make varsity as a sophomore, like almost all sophomores, at least partly because, at 15, he was still under 6 feet tall. [1] As for Berra, the only reference I found was a claim on wikipedia that he was kept off the Cardinals by a team president who was moving to the Dodgers and was hoping to sign Berra there. [2] These examples certainly don't mean that there are no false negatives when it comes to failure, but I think it's interesting that these two famous stories about great players overcoming early adversity are bunk. It is probably the case that most people start out not being so good at something, then gradually get better, with any early success compounding over time. [1] http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/11/the-man-who-cut-michael-jordan-in-high-school-sort-of/ http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/11/the-man-wh... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra