Today has been a really interesting day, as a couple of things have happened that are kind of all connected. Firstly, one of my colleagues is in the process of changing his customer base from large to small clients, as he thinks he would be better suited to it, while struggles with some of the large companies, due to the sheer number of project people involved and spread across the world. It is just not his thing. Second was with a client of mine who stacked a group of employees into an admin course I ran, even though most of them were not the kinds of people interested in or capable of performing in that role. And third, was in a meeting where I had an idea an idea for something and because it was my idea, I should take it forward, even though I am not suited for the application of the idea.
These are common enough scenarios and take on many forms, but what is interesting is how we judge based on the results of them. My colleague feels like a failure, even though he is very good at what he does. My clients feel they are now in over their head, because the content of the session was outside of their skillsets and the idea I have will be judged on the result of my activity, rather than the activity of someone qualified to develop, apply and implement it.
The problem is that when we identify with our failures even though our skillset wasn't suited, we are judging ourselves as the proverbial, fish climbing a tree. The failure made might be because of us, but it isn't necessarily our fault. My colleague didn't choose his customer base originally, the participants were selected by their organization and I can't help it if there are no open resources to take the idea forward other than me.
What is more important to recognize in failure than the failure itself, are the reasons for the failure and whether corrective action needs to be taken. It isn't always possible to "retrain" skills, so if there is value in performing the activity, new resources may need to be brought in. I would far rather have my idea driven by someone else than myself, because the idea is decent and deserves more skill and attention than I am able to provide it, even if I did have more time to commit to it.
Failure is an interesting concept when it comes to judgement and I have written a few posts on it over the years, but the thing with it is, failure happens before it is recognized as failure. For example, putting the wrong person in the position or course, or having the wrong person take an idea forward is the point of failure, it isn't at the time of performance. Yes, there are ways to mitigate the risk (like doing pre-mortems), but there is only so much a person can do and when they are doing their best, there is nothing more they could possible have done.
When talking to my colleague, I was saying how intuitively we feel like we make decent judgements because we make so many a day, without the feedback of whether we were correct. We judge people we see and at the time of judgement we feel like we have made a good call, but unless there is confirmation, we can't know - but there usually isn't. However, when we do get the feedback and are proven wrong, it becomes an outlier in our experience, the one wrong judgement in the last 1000, it just happens that we only got feedback on 2 of those thousand, giving us a 50% strike rate, while we feel we are batting at 99.9.
I have friends who tell me they are good judges of character, yet in another conversation will be complaining about how the person they have recently met turned out not to be what they had expected. At what point do they recognize that their judgement is not as good as they feel it is? Intuition is a tricky horse to handle, because it informs our judgement based on past experience of feeling right, but doesn't necessarily carry all the information of all the times it was wrong.
A lot of people like to identify themselves with their failures, a lot of people also like to only recognize their successes. This makes it like a gambler who only brags about the odd win between the sea of loss, which is obviously an unhealthy position to take, if the losses are never assimilated into the world-view for developing better judgement. Or like the depressive who only focuses on the negatives, without acknowledging all of the other feelings they might have between.
It is an imbalanced view of the world and one that will more likely lead to far more pain than resolution, as it limits the amount of data available to inform decision making in the future. And of course, it sets up a cycle of polarization in emotional state, rather than a balanced and more nuanced position. We become continually pushed and pulled by the acute extremes and forget that most of life is lived in the middle.
Some people take the "failure is not an option" approach, but to actually live this in conditions that do not demand it, means to not do much at all, not explore possibility and potential, not to go out on a limb and test the strength of the ability. I'd rather fail than live in a cage of my own design, I'd rather be in over my head, than cruise by on a cloud, but I want to be able to recognize when I am not ready and have to possibility to change direction. I think this is a skill in itself, both the recognition and the ability to prepare for a pivot.
Failure is a human concept and happens entirely in the head, but if we consider it well and learn from it, it generally holds far more value in the lesson than the cost of the failure itself. It is even possible to get that lesson from others - but there is nothing stickier than paying the cost directly - at least occasionally.
We all fall down.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
What an interesting read this was. I nearly stopped reading at the first paragraph, having thought you were writing a personal journal of the day. I’m glad that I proceeded on.
I’m that person who says they are a good judge of character yet have a dense past of a string of people who, by allowing them into my life, had destroyed my well being. I don’t think I ever stopped and thought that maybe my perspective of self and others was (is?) skewed.
Your statements on focusing and ignoring failure align with what I’ve been theorizing about mental illnesses. Depression often sparks from one or the other- or both. Someone who ignores failure becomes ill equipped to handle it. Just as, someone who hyper focuses on downfalls sinks deeper into the fall.
Bi-polar behaviour tends to stem from the inability to balance one’s focus. Those who suffer from “bi-polar” are often reward seekers and sensory seekers. They thrive and announce amazing feelings, events, and successes, but when a small failure trips them they fall and crash hard and fast. The ability to manage emotions and acceptance of failure is nonexistent.
Your blog opens up a door to explore these societal truths. Thank you.
I guess it is all a personal
journaljourney. I am not much of a calendar keeper :)There are statements like, "All men are assholes" - Not really, but the opinion is going to depend on which men you choose. "All rich people are crooks" - Not really - but it is going to depend on which you look to as the stereotype. We create heuristics to navigate our world - they aren't necessarily accurate.
This is my "fear" for the young, as these days, there are a million ways to consume your way out of paying attention to reality. I think the numbers in regards to depression in the 20 and 30 somethings is good indicator of how bad it is going to get for those in their teens now.
I think it is more than bi-polar now, it is a cultural meme that pervades society - years of neglect of understanding in favor of presenting.
You are welcome. =)
That last sentence 🙌🏼, it reminded me of how i’ve tried to look at my failures with the lens that there’s something i could get from it —a hard lesson that i have to learn on my own.
I think this is the way to do it and if we have this practice from young, perhaps we would never lose our curiosity and will to try.
I totally agree with you, failing was taught to be something kids or the young ones should not experience. And that makes it hard for adults (well, I'm speaking for myself 😅) to navigate in life, it's something that I still have to unlearn. Something I've been learning in the past years is the value of curiosity and endurance. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about failures, this reminded me to try again. 🌞
Conditioned into being boring, less daring, more predictable, feeling secure in a bubble...sad but true.
Well that’s a kind of environment that’s hard to grow up in, and I’d fear to be in. At some point, it may look comfortable but in reality, there’s just no growing in that place. 😥
Well, if you can transcend beyond the influence of such environment...Beyond the emotional and just use it for analysis...Perhaps easy to say after you consider yourself on the beyond side ;) The searching spirit should be strong and never ceasing to look for a way out.
Failure is not an option because failure is not a thing. All well-intentioned actions provide benefits. Just thinking out loud here.
I love the bit where you talk about decisions that are made on the fly, those thoughts and choices we make without thinking. You call them judgements. I have a friend who can't make these decisions, not ever, without agonizing over each one. "Do I put the knife in the dishwasher before I put the water in the glass?" kind of thinking. Somehow, though, she has managed to rise to the top of her profession, she's always anxious. Her anxiety/fear of failure has served her well.
In mind only. Animals get things wrong, but I do not think they consider it a failure in the way we do, but it is still likely a lesson.
It sounds like your friend has OCD of some kind. It must suck to live like that.
The "failure is not an option" people I believe have the most difficulty in dealing with reality. Reality is that we all fail at some point and do so many times.
The ability pivot and to see when you need to change direction is something that is not an easy thing to see or do. It takes timing, timing in seeing when to change course.
As for your idea, kick it around after making it with co-workers, your boss, and others to see if they can help get the concept moving forward. many ideas get left on the floor because people just do not want to Fail, and some co-workers, or even your boss, may really be interested.
A baby will never try to lift it's head more than once - therefore, never crawl, walk, run or fly a shuttle to the moon.
They are interested in the idea, we are just currently a bit thin on resources that could work on it, due to changing roles and new people not up to speed yet. I will progress it, but will hopefully hand it off and oversee instead.
If you are able to oversee the project then that would allow your boss to see a part or a new skill set from you and provide opportunity for growth and moving to a higher level of responsibility, when a new supervisor spot opens or what ever the next level would be for you at work.
We only fall so that we can rise up again.. Stronger than before. After all - we learn in our failures and defeats, no? 😊
There are far better and memorable lessons in defeat than success. When we succeed, we rarely ask why, we assume it is because we did the right thing.
Yeah, the whole philosophy around it is rather nihilistic, but from that point of view I can totally understand Nietzche's insistence that all human beings should in fact feel pain and not try to avoid it, as it is during those tough moments that we learn most about ourselves and of course improve. When I look upon myself for instance, I can see that the most that I have grown as a person was in the moments when I was left heartbroken - pain and ache can help us grow in the long run.
I don't know much of Nietzche, but I tihnk that a lot of the issues we face in the world are in part due to being able to avoid pain, or "take our mind off" of discomfort. We keep escaping life by engineering an alternate reality, weakening ourselves further until what was ordinary is now oppressive.
We all fall down. We only fail if we choose to stay down. We can stay bitter or we can get up and get better. When we rise again we learn from our mistakes and grow to embrace success. We do not need to become our scars but we can gain wisdom and gain self improvement.
It is interesting just how many people these days, choose this path it seems.
But good thing is you have HIVE and you can earn all time when you post 😋👌👌👌👌🤗😁
Man I have also lot HODL last 4-5 years so I know how it feels to fall, but take head up... and not let it stop you.
I thought you were powering down. I think I remember you saying a month or so back you had had enough of waiting. Good to see you still here for the time being. =)
In the meantime, the character must also show that to show I also have feelings :)) Thats what I said what I said month back ;) . NO... I not go , I have been here all time from the beginning. And I 1000% Hate Facebook,Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Jan... So I be all time here, I'm happy to use pages where I not need to use this old pages more.
I just hope HIVE soon 2 $ so we all can smile :))
I made a prediction of 3ish by June - I will put it on chain, just in case it is correct :)
We soon see ;) Here can happen lot things :)
Look I liked it.
Failure is an element of our life, immersed in it, which in general can be highly functional if we use it as a means of analysis to learn from our mistakes and grow.
And if we are not made to do all the tasks. In the case of your great idea that you have the mind to think about it but not the means to materialize it in a complete way, is it not possible to train yourself with people who are to do it well?
What kind of work do you do and what kind of idea is it?
Not with the time I have.
I work in IT and in business development and it is classified =)
Well said professor Taraz. I really like how you blog. Taking lessons from your blogging style. One thing I love is you find real life scenarios to a concept your about to talk on and relate them first befor talking on the concept and this ignites my intrest at first site. Just as you related the 3 incidents that happened to you to your main subject topic. ”failure”. These are the qualities of a good and renowned writer. Great content boss. I was educated.
I love this particular paragraph
👏👏👏👏
There is no need to suck up in comments for a vote - just be honest and authentic, it will get you further. - I really don't need the praise -what I do enjoy is the discussion on the topics I write about.
Oh wow I get it. It's not your fault tho. You come across a lot of people who do that and you now feel am one of them. I'm a newbie yes but I also want to be a good blogger and grow. When I say I love your contents I'm really honest about it. I've been reading all your content for a while now. Some I make comments and some I don't. I just made an honest complement from a long run of your contents I've read. My aim is to one day make contents that reader would love and want to read always. There are a long of wonderful and amazing writers out there, what makes my writing special? Is what I'm working on. I don't need your upvote boss. That's not what am after. I'm in here for the long run and as my life is I never make short term goals. Whether you upvote me or you don't does not really matter to me . Please refer to my previous comments Have I ever commended you this way? Please take my complement as it it and don't think otherwise cause that's a bad mentality from my point of view. And it pains me that you would make such comment. I see it as very demeaning. And it’s not nice.
Just saying mate - I have been around a while and seen many things on the chain. In general though, it is best just to learn the lessons from the style etc you want, but talk more about the content itself. However, if you really are interested, I don't mind you pointing out the styles that connect with you, if it helps you learn.
Yeah now your talking. Please do cause am really interested. Please refrain from using those kind of words. They really hurt me. Thanks 🙏
Hi @tarazkp, a most thought provoking post. I so agree at how easy it is to fall down. We are so very human with ego winning out often despite good efforts for it not to take place so regularly.
Like success and failure, ego is probably an illusion too, right? :)
Beautifully crafted. My take on failure is somewhat same but I feel everyone knows what they are capable of even if they fail they can actually work towards it to make it a success. But the problem lies in people tend to lose hope once they have failed which should not be the case.
I have noticed over the last decade or two, resilience and tenacity are heavily reduced. Lack of practice I assume.
Failure is the pillar of success
At least one of the pillars. :)
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