What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? | Hacker News Reader

What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

nytimes.com

154 pointswallflower42 comments

Currently reading "Learned Optimism", and some thoughts on that book:

A causal explanation for failure like "I am stupid" is pessimistic and hopeless, because it is both permanent (stupidity doesn't change) and universal (it affects everything you do, and is not confined to the specific thing you failed at nor even to the type of that task). A belief in this causal explanation leads you to believe that next time you attempt this task, you will also fail (because the reason for failure - stupidity - is still there); and that if you attempt any other task requiring intelligence you will will also fail (because stupidity undermines all of them).

In contrast, a causal explanation like "I wasn't trying hard" is optimistic and hopeful, because it is not permanent (you can try harder) and it's confined to that particular attempt (it's not about an unchangeable trait, but a one-off).

It seems to me that hope and optimism, when personal (about yourself), really put the responsibility on you. They blame you - but because it's in a way you can do something about, they are energizing.

Note: the book also says that blaming external circumstances and other people, instead of yourself, is an "optimistic" causal explanation - but "hopeful" is only the other two, non-permanence and non-universal. It also expresses misgivings about the irresponsibility of blaming external factors.

singlepage: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secre...

I prefer "I didn'd know enough". I 'm not a slacker who doesn't try or a simpleton who can't learn, I just didn't have all the facts this time around. I will next time.

They're just examples. "Not having all the facts that time" is also a hopeful and optimistic one, because it is non-permanent (you can get more facts) and specific to the situation (implicitly, it only comments on facts for that specific task, on that specific occasion).

Note that restating "I wasn't trying hard" as "I'm a slacker" makes it permanent (being a slacker isn't a one-off thing) and universal (being a slacker is an abiding trait, someone who doesn't try at anything; it's not specific to a particular task).

One could claim this is just arguing semantics; but these different words do express different causal explanations.

People tend to see patterns (perhaps especially programmers); so that if a person claimed they "weren't trying" a few times, we would tend to generalize that into an abiding trait, or even an identity, such as being "a slacker". I think this is interesting, because it illustrates a switching point between optimism and pessimism: you could interpret those few times as isolated incidents due to circumstances ("confining them to their facts"); or you could infer a regularity. Of course, the problem of pessimism is clearer when more extreme, e.g. generalizing a single instance into a universal rule.

BTW: according to the book it's not as simple as optimists being cognitively deficient at seeing patterns: for good events, an optimistic and hopeful approach is to see the pattern. While this is certainly convenient and self-serving, it's worth noting that doing it the other way (i.e. minimizing good event as one-offs and seeing a pattern in bad events) is also self-serving - just in a self-defeating way. The book makes a compelling and nuanced argument that it's better to err on the side of optimism (unless there are serious risks involved in failure).

Is this something you have said to yourself repeatedly or a pre-prepared cop-out for the next time you fail?

I say it to myself precisely to avoid "copping out" or being discouraged. A reminder that there are things to learn from each failure.

Kind of like fear.. the mind-killer.. little death, yadda yadda.

In that order of ideas your nickname should be: "currentlynoonespecial"

jQueryIsAwesomeForNow

But only for now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8uaAJFnnDU

The article also reveals that as Americans now that our country has evolved over past around 300 years of democracy, there is a sense of 'entitlement' that has come with it.

This entitlement is in opposition to fostering curiosity and risk taking mentality. People that feel they are entitled to have food, shelter and clothing will never work creatively towards it and will be reluctant in taking risks or understanding failure.

This needs to be fostered at a young age, when kids should be working on projects and understanding the value of resilience instead of having things handed down to them. I came to this country at a young age and had to fend for myself. Thats when I learned the real meaning of 'resilience'.

When I look at various techniques used in special forces training in the United States -- waterboarding, hypothermia, near-drowning, psychological torutre, etc -- I'm left with the counter-intuitive observation that taking stuff away from people and making life really tough on them has a tendency to make them much more able to handle all the "normal" stuff that many times tangles up the rest of us.

There might be something there which these schools could harvest.

PTSD. Sorry.

That training is about taking people out of civil society and giving them the ability to engage in behaviors that would give others (quite rightly) pause. This is not a place to look to generate well-rounded citizens that do not see violence as a way to manipulate others.

The primary "technique" that special forces training uses is just simple exhaustion. It's humbling how much being exhausted can make you re-asses your priorities - and even if you don't quit, you know that you wanted to. Being that exhausted and knowing that rest is nowhere near in your future can be psychologically devastating. The things you listed are probably used, but they're not the primary training method.

I have never been in the military, but I've training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and some mixed martial arts for many years now. Practices can be tough.

s/special forces training uses/having children works on you/

The most effective schools do similar things, and call it "outdoor education". It's expensive, and I doubt there's much evidence about the long-term effects on the students.

I'd guess they don't take it far enough to be useful. When people first experience cold, hunger, fear and exhaustion, most focus on their suffering, and feel helpless. You can learn to take the discomfort for granted, focus on your actions, and feel proud. That takes more experience and mentoring than the average student gets.

Also, being able to handle the normal stuff is good, but not caring about it at all is bad, and the middle ground can be hard to find. Tim Winton's novel, Breath, develops that idea.

> waterboarding, hypothermia, near-drowning, psychological torutre, etc

Do yourself a favor and read Judith Herman's book "Trauma and Recovery." You'll quickly understand why your counter-intuitive observation is simply wrong. These things work in special forces training in a way they never could and never will in prisons and hospitals.

I don't know. Tasting failure, working to avoid is different from lacking food, shelter, or clothing. As an adult, I know I'm more likely to take risks if I know that, for instance, gambling on this job won't kill me. And taste too much failure, and you hit learned helplessness. Like the girl who was chewing gum was experiencing:

> “She said: ‘I’m trying so hard to just grow up. But nothing ever changes!’ And I said: ‘Do you know what does change? You didn’t have a baby attack in front of the other kids, and two weeks ago, you would have.’ ”

That's the teacher being encouraging, lessening the failure the kid is experiencing. Because people's pride in themselves is a sufficient motivator to change their lives positively, without risking starvation.

This is a Different spin than "embrace failure like silicon valley." It is about developing resilience. Recovering from failure can't be taught to kids protected from it.

I recall a conversation post-graduation with a (the?) top student from my high school. He naturally assumed that every parent intervenes on their kids grades, and couldn't believe mine never did. Perhaps this is why the classmates who had the most professional success were the workaholics not quite at the valedictorian level who used bad grades as motivation.

And to those complaining of cliches.... At least they didn't quote the marshmallow story.

Failure is also a pretty good indicator that you're trying to do things. That's not to say there aren't success stories where someone tried something, got lucky, and it went off from the very start. I just mean that, in my own personal experience, I wasted a lot of time waiting for something to happen.

Once you actually start trying out ideas and trying to do something, you often also start encountering failures - big and small- and I try not to take it as a bad thing, but rather as a lesson in whatever it was I was doing and also as a personal reminder that "hey, I had an idea and I ran with it and worked at it. I tried to do something, let's try again or work harder at a different idea."

I really identify with your top student comment, thanks for sharing.

Well if you aren't failing you're not trying. I think we as Americans, I can't speak to any sort of European or other experience, have grown up with this attitude that makes us very afraid of putting ourselves into situations where we could potentially fail. For instance, a few months back when I began working on my startup when I would tell people about it one of the biggest responses I would get is "I wish I had the guts to try and do something like this" or "Aren't you afraid".

One of the best quotes I've ever heard about failure comes from the Teddy Roosevelt "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

If this piece reveals anything about the larger educational picture, perhaps it's that the pendulum is swinging back to more austere forms of upbringing.

It is peculiar, however, that the austerity would be growing out from Positive Psychology, which traditionally was more laid back and unrestricted. This mash-up of seemingly opposite worldviews makes sense if you consider the trend of the last 20 or 30 years to reconcile differences in cultural. I invite you to read David Brook's Bobos in Paradise for an incredibly lucid account of the convergence of Bohemia and Bourgeois values in the last few decades.

The article doesn't question the poorer school's choice of measured outcome -- college graduation. Does becoming a college graduate correlate well with a good life outcome, or do the skills required to graduate from college (both academic and character-related) lead to success and/or happiness?

Even more, 'a stable career' as the supposedly positive outcome seems like a rather '50s concept these days.

I think what people are going to be learning the hard way in the near future that 'careers' are over, and 'making value for which someone will pay you' is the only way forward. Of course, that's much more nebulous to both target and to measure, but that doesn't change the reality of the current situation.

A while back I read a book called Geography of Bliss [1] which covers the authors attempt to find the happiest country in the world (with statistics etc to back it up) and find out what makes it such a happy place. One of the countries covered is Iceland, and the author explores Iceland's notion that you are a failure if you have not experienced failure for yourself. There is (supposedly - since I am taking this knowledge from a book and not first hand experience) no societal qualms about failing at something, and it is highly encouraged to try and find yourself and what you want to do in life - whether you succeed or not. I think having this mentality allows people to try without worrying about how society might perceive them - not that there aren't risk takers out there (obviously this forum is a grand example of plenty of those people), but you also have a big part of society who would look down on failure, even if it's their own kids, and instead of encouraging them, they tell them they have to succeed at everything they do.

Failure is an option, but do what you can to prevent failure. If you've failed, just learn from your experience and let it make you stronger for the future.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Bliss-Grumps-Search-Happiest...

I always thought failure was an important concept to learn, not failure in itself, but failure and the ability to pick yourself up afterwards. I cringe to think about today's kids who are growing up in an environment where failure is foreign, whether that is in sports where no scores are kept or the no fail policy at schools. I can just imagine a generation of kids who will grow up and are perfectly content in their mediocracy.

Ask the uk or the netherlands if they are happy with iceland failing as a nation.

Not a fair accusation and out of place as well.

Iceland did not "fail as a nation." Simply the financial sector was too large a percentage of the economy. When the financial sector collapsed (as it did in the UK as I recall) so did the economy.

Fantastic article.

Here's a useful take-away: Christopher Peterson's set of strengths that are especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement:

zest grit self-control social intelligence gratitude optimism curiosity

Single page, for convenience: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secre...

9 pages of crap to mention The Marshmallow Test, The Never Give Up principle, fruits of Delayed Gratification and importance of Self Control, things that every amateur sportsman or musician have learnt after trying to achieve a mere average level? ^_^

I think failure can be extremely valuable on the path to success, provided you learn from your mistakes. But very often people erroneously assign blame or put too much weight on the wrong causes for the failure, and that leaves them no more likely to succeed.

If something doesn't pan out, it is very important to make an honest assessment of why the failure occurred, so the next time around you can make the necessary changes. Doing this is also likely to increase your confidence.

That said, I did find the article interesting because I have always wondered about the incentive system in place in our education system. I think too many parents and teachers put WAY too much emphasis on grades, test scores, and constantly feel compelled to compare performance with other students. To me I am tempted to believe that the most important traits in anybody are enthusiasm and optimism for one thing. What thing? It doesn't really matter. I would much rather see a kid who is enthusiastic about doing something they believe in than obsessively studying to outperform their peers so they can get their ticket punched to move on to the next round and repeat the process.

"The Learned Optimism" book is great. I purchased it because somebody here recommended it. I wish I could give copies to all my friends.

Is this meme still going around? zzzz. It's not about failure, it's about detecting it and learning from it. Lionizing failure is a feature of an industry so desperate for the next buzz concept to promote that it's kind of embarrassing.

The tape installations in the photos are so cool. I looked up the designer, Stephen Doyle. His firm has an impressive portfolio: http://doylepartners.com/

Some of my favorites:

http://doylepartners.com/project/hypertext/index.html

http://doylepartners.com/project/david_byrne/index.html

http://doylepartners.com/project/thinking_fingers/index.html

Here's something I don't understand: One reason for introducing the KIPP 'character report' was that only 33% of their students were graduating from college. But the following article from 2009 says that "KIPP’s [college graduation] rate so far has been over 90%": http://www.economist.com/node/13938869

So has the focus on character been enormously successful? If so, why not mention that in the New York Times piece?

I guess it takes true grit to read through nine pages of that, which I unfortunately do not possess :-(

Somebody should make a business out of shrinking NYT articles.

Failures and mistakes are good if they are numerous and quick, preferably not committing the same ones over and over again. You learn faster and move on this way. The worst kinds of mistakes are the protracted ones. Sometimes it takes too long and the damage is irreversible. The key is keeping an open mind and always be vigilant. Listen to those around you and ask for advice.

This. I've recently realized I learn best by minimizing consequences and failing quick. I think it comes down to being able to separate critique from my feelings and also assessing why I didn't get what I wanted, and applying what I've learned to get what I want next time.

I'm sales for a new b2b saas startup with no sales background, but I'm great with people and I can handle cold calling and rejection. I fail all the time, I'm not able to get a response from first contact, I lose contact after a couple emails, on the phone/in person I cant answer a technical question, I provided poor customer service, I went down on price to soon, I sold features not benefits, etc.

The point is, every time I'm successful, I get a response from a cold email, or move a customer further down the pipe towards a sale I take a mental note and also write in my CRM. I'm constantly evolving my pitch as my product and industry knowledge grow. There are dozens of thousands of potential customers so my risk is minimized because any mistake will be between me and them only, and I'm able to fail fast by reaching out to a lot of potential customers.

I personally believe that the secret to success is doing. Whether I am failing or succeeding, I keep doing and improving what I am doing.

Would the founders of a startup who are willing to pivot as needed get something lower than the highest possible grit score?

... then I should be way more successful than I am. :)

If the secret to success is failure, NYTimes should be the #1 newspaper on the planet.

On the discussion boards of UrbanBaby.com, worked-up moms from the Upper East Side argue over whether Riverdale sends enough seniors to Harvard, Yale and Princeton to be considered truly “TT” (top-tier, in UrbanBabyese), or whether it is more accurately labeled “2T” (second-tier)

Xoxohth posters are now having kids?

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