Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
The art and science of failing well | Big Think | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The art and science of failing well
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
Failure is an essential and unavoidable component of learning, growth, and success, requiring a constructive approach to embrace its lessons rather than fearing or stigmatizing it.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Whenever somebody turns a failure into success,
something really interesting has happened,
and we should be asking ourselves how and why.
We find it really hard to separate the idea that,
“yeah, I made a mistake, I failed, I did something wrong”,
with the idea that, “I am a failure”.
There's no way that people can learn without failing.
Think of some of the heroes of our day,
they've made enormous number of mistakes.
It's through failure, that we can enjoy deep learning,
become more resilient and stronger.
And if you look at the life of any successful person,
they've always had major, as well as minor failures.
I don't like failure. I think it sucks.
It's a terrible thing. I wish it wasn't necessary,
but I can't figure out any other way for people to learn
how to do most things, but to sort of screw up enough
until the point where they get better at it.
When I think about failure,
there's three general sorts of responses that emerge
from both the management, literature in practice.
The first one is what I call “the forgive and forget” approach.
And the problem with “forgive and forget”
is there's like no accountability and there's no learning.
The second approach is what I call the “Silicon Valley standard”.
This is remember, blame, stigmatize, ostracize and humiliate.
And the problem with that is that when you sort of humiliate people
or put them down when they fail,
then they're afraid to admit mistakes,
and the whole world turns into a cover your ass sort of game,
so no learning occurs.
And the way that the most effective organizations, and in fact,
if you look at research on hospitals that learn from medical mistakes,
this is sort of the mantra they sometimes use.
It's to “forgive and remember”.
So you forgive to have some psychological safety.
And you remember so that you can learn from your own mistakes
and other people's mistakes.
Anyone has the right to fail.
I experience my downs.
I experience hardships and difficulties just like anyone else does.
And what positive psychology does,
is give one tools to overcome this.
Positive psychology essentially focuses on what works.
When we focus on people’s strengths,
when we cultivate their happiness,
we're actually indirectly also helping them deal
with hardships and difficulties.
The first thing that an organization needs to do
is to give space for people to fail.
It needs to identify the areas where failure is not traumatic or terrible.
To also consider giving people recovery space.
And this is necessary. That's part of creativity.
It’s no coincidence that the word “creation” and “recreation”
are etymologically linked.
Because we need to recreate if we want to create.
These recovery periods in the long term
actually contribute to creativity, productivity, as well as happiness.
All of us are at risk of cognitive dissonance in a small way
whenever we make a mistake.
Particularly a mistake on something that's important to us.
When we've invested our reputation, when we put money into it,
when we put time into it,
that is when we are most at risk
because our self-image is under threat.
We find it really hard to separate the idea that,
“yeah, I made a mistake, I failed, I did something wrong”,
with the idea that, “I am a failure”.
“I am the kind of person who makes mistakes,
who gets things wrong”.
The first step in responding in a constructive way
when you've made a mistake is to separate yourself from the mistake.
To understand, you can be a person who made a mistake.
That does not make you a person who will always make mistakes.
Then you'll be able to admit you got something wrong
and start to, in a mature and forward thinking way,
think about how to fix it.
Since failure is around every corner, we're always making mistakes,
if we try to do something interesting,
we're going to be making mistakes.
So whenever you're trying a new experiment,
whether it's a new job, a new product, a new hobby,
a new boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever it is,
you need to give some thought to what you're going to do
if it doesn't work out, and how to minimize the downside,
as well as taking advantage of the upside.
The next thing is to have some sort of feedback mechanism
that tells you whether things are going well, or not going well.
Tells you whether you're succeeding or failing.
Often it's simply a case of asking yourself
what the markers for success might be.
Or even simpler than that,
just asking someone you can trust, to give you a straight opinion.
It can be remarkably hard to get people to give you an honest
and constructive opinion, but that's absolutely essential.
You may not always get responses,
but that's the kind of feedback that you need
if you're going to fix your own mistakes.
Thomas Edison has patented 1,093 inventions,
more than any other scientist inventor in history.
He's also the scientist as far as we know,
who has failed the most times.
When Edison was working on the battery,
an interviewer came over and said to him,
“Edison, you have failed a thousand times. Give it up.”
To which Edison responded,
“I haven't failed a thousand times.
I've succeeded a thousand times.
I've succeeded in showing what doesn't work.”
Edison also famously said, “I failed my way to success.”
One of the mantras that I repeat over and over again
to myself, to my students is,
“learn to fail or fail to learn.”
I tell them that I wish them that they fail more.
And I truly, sincerely mean it.
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
