Let's Normalize Failure (The Right Kind) | Manu Kapur

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This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello,
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my fellow suffering beings. How are we doing today? In
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an era of rampant and rising perfectionism, many people desperately
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fear failure. But today I'm talking to an expert who
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says we should be actively seeking out failure, at least
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the right kind of failure. He calls it Productive Failure,
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which is also the name of his new book. The
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he in question here, the human in question. His name
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is Manu Kapoor. He's the director of the Singapore ETH
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Center and a professor for learning sciences and higher education
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at ETH Zurich, which is in Switzerland, where he also
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directs the Future Learning Initiative. We talk about the definition
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of productive failure, a concept that Manu developed and which
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allows you to design for and harness failure. so that
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you can learn in a deeper and more effective way.
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We talk about why we learn more from failing than
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from succeeding, which is counterintuitive for many of us. The
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difference between desirable and undesirable failure, the neuroscience of curiosity,
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practical ways to incorporate productive failure into your life, how
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to get into your so-called failure zone, how to create
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environments in which other people feel safe to fail, and
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much more. Just to say before we dive in, we're
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dropping a guided meditation that is customized to this episode.
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It's going to help you take all of the fascinating
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things you're about to learn and really pound it into
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your neurons. Today's guided meditation comes from Kyra Jewel Lingo,
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who's going to talk about how to handle your discomfort,
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which is, of course, a non-negotiable part of failure. So
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if you want to get good at failing in the
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right way, you need to learn how to handle your discomfort.
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So Kyra has crafted a guided meditation. Again, it's bespoke,
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customized to this episode. As a reminder, we're now regularly
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offering these companion meditations for every Monday, Wednesday episode. If
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you want to get them, you've got to sign up
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over at danharris.com, our burgeoning little meditation community. Another perk,
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if you sign up over at danharris.com, is I regularly
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do live guided meditations and Q & A sessions. We've
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got one coming up this week on Thursday, August 14th
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at 4 Eastern. danharris.com. Come check it out. Join the party.
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We'll get started with Manu Kapoor right after this. Manu Kapoor,
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welcome to the show.
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Manu Kapoor Thank you, Dan. It's lovely to be here.
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Daniel Disney It's lovely to have you here. I think
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it's probably appropriate to start with your personal story. What
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brought you to this notion of productive failure?
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Manu Kapoor Well, life basically was, as I said, the
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dots connect looking back. So I wasn't thinking of doing
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something like that, but you know, as a teenager, I
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wanted to play football. which is soccer, right? So not
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American football, the real football. And I was, you know,
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training to become a professional player, but a knee injury
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got in the way. And then I had to completely
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pivot my plans to doing, you know, my bachelor's degree
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in engineering. And by the end of that, I was
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sure that that's not what something I wanted to do.
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And then I delved in the startup world. And this
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was back at the turn of the millennia where it
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was the dot-com boom, which very quickly turned into a
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dot-com doom, as you may remember. quick stint in the industry,
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and then I started teaching math to low-income students. And
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that's where I really fell in, not just, I mean,
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I could always do math, but more on mathematical cognition.
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So how do people understand math concepts and so on
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and so forth? And that led me to pursue my
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doctorate in the learning sciences to really think about the
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mechanisms of how a mind comes to understand something new.
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And that's when I started connecting with literature and something
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to add up. Because everybody was saying, if you don't
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know something, so if then you don't know something, a
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concept in math or something, then I should just explain
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it to you very clearly, very logically. And that's the
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best way to teach you what that new concept is.
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Except there was a fair enough body of research suggesting
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that may not be the most optimal way of learning
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something new. And so I just turned it on its
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head and said, well, if success is not the way
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to learn something new, then maybe failure is. And that
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finally led me to the question, well, if failure can
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be compelling for learning, if it's so intuitive that we
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can learn from our errors and mistakes, then why should
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we wait for failure to happen? What if we could
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deliberately design for it when you're about to learn something
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new in a safe way, and then bootstrap that for
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deep learning? And that's how the whole program started, in
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productive failure.
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So it required some failure in your own life that
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landed you in this position to have this insight?
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Yeah, I mean, looking back, that definitely seems to be
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the case. One explanation for why I landed on something
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like productive failure was my journey itself. At each point,
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it punctuates it, and therefore it makes you even more
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primed to pick up something like that or conceptualize something
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like that, but not going forward. I mean, the forward
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journey was anything but as designed, yeah.
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So the basic thesis of productive failure is instead of
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What's I think called a direct instruction where I'm explaining
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something to you, if I'm trying to teach you and
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which is the traditional mode of teaching and learning. You
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design an experience so somebody can mess something up and
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in the process of messing something up, then you really learn. Yeah.
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That prepares you to learn productive failures only for the
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initial learning. When you first come to understand a new
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concept or an idea. or a strategy, or something like that, right?
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And there, the idea, as you said, instead of just
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telling you what it is, direct instruction, we design challenging
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activities that are intuitive, yet inaccessible. So you feel that
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you can attack them, you can do something, you can
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generate some ideas, some solutions, and so on. But the
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way that we design them is that none of your
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ideas or solutions are going to work. In other words,
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you will try something, and you'll say, oh, that doesn't work.
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and you try something else, and you say, oh, that
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doesn't work either. And if you do three, four, five
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of such things, five failures, and having explored that, then
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when you are given the correct knowledge, the correct explanation,
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or the correct feedback, that contrast between your failed methods
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and the correct information, that's what creates powerful learning, as
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opposed to just giving you the correct information without this
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initial exploration that leads to failure.
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So it's important that you design and we'll get into
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how we can apply this in our own lives, but
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it's important that you design experiences that are guaranteed to
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lead to failure, because if you design an experience where
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I succeed, I'll actually learn less.
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Not so much as learn less. I guess you could
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say learn less because the power of learning from the
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suboptimal of the failed solutions is greater. So yes, if
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you have an early convergence towards success, your desire to
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go beyond just basically goes down. It's like, okay, I've
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got it already. There's nothing else to do. Whereas if
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you are constantly trying to figure out because your methods
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are not working, that's what's setting you up to learn
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the correct method.
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Well, I teach people basic meditation all the time. And
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basic meditation is failure is built in or quote unquote
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failure is built in. People feel like they're failing. And
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I try to reframe that as, success you try to
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focus on something you get distracted that getting distracted doesn't
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mean you suck at meditation that is meditation so how
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would i apply this insight around productive failure to my
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instructions around meditation.
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Yeah so again i don't know if you give your
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students or uh you know an instruction first in how
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to meditate and then you get them to do it
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then you're probably following some kind of okay here's a
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scheme to follow and then this is what you do
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whereas Maybe you can just start them off with, okay,
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let's try to meditate as best you know, and without
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giving them any pointers or tips initially. And then you
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see what they do. And different people may come up
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with different strategies. They may reach different roadblocks. They may
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have different kinds of distractions that they have to deal with.
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And once you've gathered all of that, then you introduce
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the tips to somehow mediate or navigate those roadblocks or distractions.
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And chances are they will then pick those up or
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understand or or be able to learn how to meditate
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in the right way a lot faster. But there's one
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thing that you said that you already do is in
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the moment when people are engaging in productive failure, we
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don't tell them that you suck or you fail. The
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goal is to normalize that struggle, is to normalize that
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failure and say, this is what's going to happen because
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you're trying something that you haven't mastered yet. If you
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had already mastered it, you wouldn't need to learn it.
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But because you're in that zone where whatever you're trying
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is above your current skill sets and abilities, you're going
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to be frustrated. You're going to be distracted. You're going
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to feel failure. And all of that is normal. The
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important thing is that you keep trying.
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So specifically as it pertains to meditation, you're saying that
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I might tell people, hey, for a minute, whatever you
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think meditation is, do that. And then they're likely to struggle.
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And then I'll say, okay, so tell me about what
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you experienced and now try this. Yeah, exactly. And there's
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something about failing and overcoming, you say, that leads to,
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and these are your words, a mastery orientation?
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Yeah, because once you try something by yourself, as long
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as it's a safe space within which you can try,
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and I imagine your meditation studios are exactly those safe spaces, right?
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Once you try something and it doesn't work, your motivation
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to understand why that thing didn't work and what is
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the correct way to make it work, those two things
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happen at the same time. And you want to know
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Not just that something works, but why does it work?
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And that's mastery orientation. Achievement orientation is I just want
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to get it done. I don't need to understand it.
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I just want to get it done. Whereas mastery is, no, no,
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just getting it done is not important. Just going out
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to your meditation studio, having done it is not important.
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I need to understand why dance strategies or dance tips
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actually worked. And when I tried it myself, it did not.
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It's that question why that leads to mastery, orientation.
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You write a lot about the neuroscience of curiosity. Why
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is curiosity such a powerful mental factor?
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Yeah, because it's tied to emotions and the many ways of,
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you know, raising curiosity. And of course, many people think
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that curiosity is something that people have or don't have
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or have it to different degrees. And I tend to
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think curiosity as an interaction between a person and the environment.
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So in some environments, the same person would be a
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lot more curious because there are things that intrigue them.
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And one of the very powerful ways of designing for
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curiosity is to give people failure experiences. Because when you fail, again,
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you're curious then. Why did my method not work? So
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that curiosity, and it's then tied to emotion, so your
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limbic system gets activated. because emotionally you're feeling frustrated or
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a little stressed or even a little anxious, even though
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it's a safe space. You may even feel bad about
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yourself that you were not able to carry it out
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or produce anything that worked. But that activation of the
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limbic system is very important because that then tells your
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attentional networks, hey, pay attention here. This is important. I
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couldn't do it. I felt bad for not being able
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to do it, and I want to know why. So
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attentional networks are activated, which then tell your processing power
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to overcompensate, say, please process this information that comes up
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next to deeply understand what is it and why is
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it the way it is. And so you could just
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emotionally supercharge your attention and processing to learn from that
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failure because you experienced it yourself. And curiosity drives that experience.
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Is all failure good?
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Great question. No. So we're only talking about failure that
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is in the initial learning. So when you first come
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to learn something new, we're not saying failure in high-stakes
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situations such as exams or tests or other places where
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you're really at work, where you really need to perform
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or get that project out or perform that surgery, land
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a plane, whatever. Whereas failure in those situations is not desirable.
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But here's the logic of productive failure. It's the idea
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that if you use failure in a safe way when
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you first learn something new, then it helps you learn
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that thing in deep ways that when you apply it later,
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when the stakes are high, the possibility of failure is lower.
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So use early and a safe way to learn deeply
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so that you can reduce the likelihood failure when it
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really matters. So no, all failure is not the same.
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One is desirable, the other one is not.
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Right. So with this kind of failure, the productive failure,
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it's almost like an inoculation. Yeah.
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An inoculation is a great analogy because if you look
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at the vaccination, Logic, it's exactly that. You deliberately introduce
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a small piece of foreign germs, a small quantity of
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foreign germs into your body. The body tries to fight it,
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but it's not able to. So temporarily there's a dip
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in your, you know, you feel unwell or feel sick
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a little bit. But that gives the body a time
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to learn and adapt, to build copies of this new
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germ and come out stronger with rest and nutrition. So
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the next time the attack is, it's better prepared. It's
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exactly that. It's introducing failure in a very deliberate, safe
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way so that you can learn how to adapt deeply.
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Another comparison you make for productive failure is exercise.
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Yeah, yeah. Strength training is exactly one of the others.
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It's called super compensation in strength training. And as an athlete,
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we used to do that all the time. We just
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didn't know it was productive failure. So try, you know,
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if you want to do your push-ups or pull-ups, and
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if you really want to become strong at doing it,
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The idea is that you do it. Suppose you're able
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to do 10 push-ups or 10 pull-ups. The real effort
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starts at 8, 9, 10. And just when you can't
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do any more, if you do that one extra one
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in a safe way, as long as you don't injure yourself,
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what really happens is that your microfibers, the muscle fibers
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start to rupture. And then you've got to stop, right?
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You've got to stop. You've got to give your body
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24 to 48 hours to recover with nutrition. And then
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when you come out, you come out above your baseline
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strength that you started. So again, you take your body
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deliberately through failure, rupture, give it the nutrition and rest
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and the chance to adapt and consolidate, and you come
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out stronger. So the same thing happens there.
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Another thing I promise, and I'm promising to the listener
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here that we will get pretty practical in a second,
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but just on a high level, another comparison you make
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is play. Can you talk about the power of play
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in this context?
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Yeah, so people have studied how children play with toys
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or play with particularly new toys that they don't understand, right?
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And some of the experiments that I've described in the book,
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suppose you give a child a toy, which is new
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and they've never seen or heard or played with it.
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And you say, well, if you want to play, just
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play with it. And I observe how you play, try
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to figure out how the toy works. Or if you
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give the child a toy and say, here's a new toy,
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you've never played with it, but I want you to
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learn from me, I will show you how to play
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with this toy, here's how it works, and then you
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play as you like. So in one case, you've given
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the child the freedom to figure out how the toy works,
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and the other one, you've showed them exactly how it works,
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and then said, play it as you like. And experiments
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show that children are more engaged in the former, in
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the case where they're not told how to play with
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the toy, they invent more strategies to figure out how
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the toy works, And these strategies are very close to
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scientific strategies, hypothetical deductive strategies. They're predicting constantly, if I
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do this, this happens, and so on and so forth.
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Whereas students or children who were actually showed how to
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play with a toy, they get limited, they get framed,
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they get put in a box that, oh, the adult
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here has showed me exactly what to do, then I'm
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just going to do that. Now you can start thinking
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of knowledge and ideas, not just as these tangible toys,
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but conceptual toys. And part of deep learning, creativity, application
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comes from your experiences that allow you to tinker with
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this knowledge, try different things, try to figure it out,
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and then learn from it.
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What are the barriers that you see people encountering in
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embracing this idea of productive failure? One thing that comes
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to mind for me is my understanding is that perfectionism
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is on the rise, especially among young people. Failure is,
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you can put a positive spin on it as much
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as you want, but a lot of people are really
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reluctant to engage in any kind of failure. Is that
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a barrier in your view for people?
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Yeah. I mean, if you want to get things perfect
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all the time from the get go, you will never
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learn anything new because the whole idea of learning something
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new is that means you don't know that thing yet.
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And therefore the first time you try this, you will
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necessarily fail or not be able to do it completely.
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And so if you actually, the paradox is you actually
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want to get to high levels of perfection, try to
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leverage failure early on, because the more you do it,
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the steeper your curve to perfection, the faster you get there.
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The other way to think is if you always want perfection,
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then you'll always be very safe, which means you're not
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going to try very many things beyond your current capabilities.
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One of your expressions is, if it's too easy, it's
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not teaching you.
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Exactly, yeah. We think that making learning easy, eases learning.
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Whereas everything we know from science, that learning something new
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is hard, it is intentional, it is effortful. And that
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should be the norm. So when I tell my students
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and my colleagues, if you are learning something new and
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you feel that you're struggling and you're not getting it,
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instead of telling yourself that this is not for you,
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you know, like math is not for me. This is
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not my cup of tea. Tell yourself, this is exactly
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what a person who's learning something new is supposed to
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feel like, which means this is normal. Yes. Right. Yeah.
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Yes. This goes back to when I'm giving people meditation
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instructions and I don't own any meditation studios, but I'm
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often speaking to either large groups on video, or I
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give a lot of speeches in corporate settings and, I
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hear from people all the time that I've tried it
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and I'm not good at it. But it's like, one
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of the things I say to people is if I
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handed you a violin and you'd never played it before,
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you're not going to be awesome at it. Like learning,
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if you're struggling, like that's what's supposed to happen. Do
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you care? I mean, you're not going to be willing
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to go through the violin thing if you don't care
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about learning how to play the violin. Similarly with meditation,
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do you care about being happy, less anxious, less distracted?
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If that's goal is attractive to you then a certain
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amount of struggle and suffering in the meantime is totally
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normal and should be completely.
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Acceptable absolutely and desirable yes you know and struggle alone
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is not sufficient right because that should make you reflect
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on what is it that you're doing right what is
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it that you're not getting Because the reflecting upon your
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struggle actually sets you up for the potential of learning
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something deeply. And then if there's feedback, like an expert
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from you, when you're teaching, or a teacher, or somebody,
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the contrast, and I think that's where people start to
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see things. Contrasts help us see what is critical. Something
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did not work, and something works. If I compare those two,
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in the comparison is what I see. Oh, now I
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get it, why my method was not working, and why
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it The expert's method does. And contrasts help you turn
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your failure into insight, into deep learning.
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Say that again. The contrast between.
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So reflection on your struggle sets up the potential to
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learn deeply. And contrasting with expert knowledge, so contrasting your
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own failed methods with the expert's methods, turns that failure
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into deep insight. Yes.
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I don't know if this is deep insight, but I exercise...
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with a group of friends and they're all much more
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experienced at this kind of exercise we're doing. It's sort
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of a strength training in a circuit and I'm, you know,
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of a certain age. So I, I, the form is
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really important to me because I get hurt easily. And
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so I spend a non-trivial amount of time in these workouts,
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trying something even as simple as a pushup, like a
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pushup is actually quite complex. You do need to do
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it correctly. And most people don't do it correctly. And
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I'm trying it and then getting a little feedback and
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watching other people. And over time, I really get it.
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But I do have to be willing to kind of
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look like a schmuck compared to everybody else. Exactly.
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And have feedback in that environment so that you can contrast.
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It. Coming up, Manu Kapoor talks about some practical ways
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to incorporate productive failure into your daily life. how to
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get into your so-called failure zone, how to welcome and
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normalize failure, and more. Okay, so let's talk about how
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we can, well, there are two things to talk about.
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How can we create environments in which other people feel
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safe to fail productively? But let's hold that because I
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want to talk first about How can we incorporate this
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in our own lives for ourselves? So at the beginning
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of this conversation, what would you say we should know
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about how to, in an atmosphere where perfectionism is on
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the rise, how do we start to incorporate productive failure
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into our lives so as to ensure success down the road?
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So I see this as a capability development. As children,
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we learn to speak so that we can use speech
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to learn. It accelerates. Same, you learn to read so
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we can use reading to learn. And it's the same
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with failure. We have to learn to fail so that
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you can use failure to learn. So what does learning
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to fail then mean? What does that mean? Because it's
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learning to speak and reading is easy. We all understand it.
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So learning to failure actually means a few things. First,
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you need to know how to get into your failure zone.
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So if you take on a task and you can
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do it, that's great. You've got success, but you've not
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entered the failure zone. You try on a harder task
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and you're still able to do it. You're still not
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in your failure zone. You've got to try a hard
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task that is either totally new or challenging enough compared
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to what you know, that when you take on that
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challenge and say, oh, now I can't do this. That's
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when you've entered. So failure gives you information that you've
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now entered the failure zone, right? That's the first thing.
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Whether you're learning how to code or to learn a
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new language, to write an elevator pitch or to cook
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eggs or whatever you're doing, right? Anything that is new,
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you've got to learn how to enter the failure zone.
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And then when you're in the failure zone, you have
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to normalize the failure. And this is a mindset shift
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that I'm going to struggle. It's going to be frustrating.
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At times, I'm going to feel like just completely giving
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it up. This does not mean that I should actually
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give up. It just means that this is the normal
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process of learning that new thing. And if I can
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persist through it, it's good for me. And the third
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part is to design the resources or the expert knowledge
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or the feedback in your system. Because if you just
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keep failing and nothing happens, it leads to unproductive failure.
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You never learned anything. You just tried a bunch of
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things that didn't work out and oops, there's no feedback
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on what you did. So you need experts. You need
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expert knowledge, expert ways of thinking and doing. to contrast,
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as we spoke earlier, to contrast with what you, your
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own ways. And that contrast then helps you. So that's
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the broad framework of learning how to fail. Entering the zone,
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normalizing the mindset and failure, and then designing, being resourceful
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about having the contrast with experts to help you gain
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that insight and knowledge.
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And the zone, again, okay, I'm just going to, I'm
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going to go back to exercise for a second.
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Pull-ups.
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Pull-ups are not easy for me. I can maybe do
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four or five I probably, if I was just doing
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one set, I could probably do a little bit more
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than that, but as part of a rotation, I can
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probably do four or five. What I'm describing is I'm
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in the zone. I'm when I get to five and
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I've got the right form, I'm in the zone and
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I just need to not feel like shit about the
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fact that I can't get the six yet, but keep trying.
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Yeah. Or you could give yourself a little bit of
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a weight discount. If you have those machines where you
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can discount your weight, then you can try a few more.
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at a slightly lighter weight so that you keep remaining
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in that zone which is beyond. Even a slight discount
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that helps you go forward. And I think that's when
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you start to really burn off the muscles. Again, only
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until the time that it's safe. So how much you
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want to enter the zone, you have to know your
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body and use this example and keep it safe. But
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there are ways to just, instead of just one last push-up,
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you can do many things so that, or you can
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get somebody to assist you a little bit. Just provide
478
00:26:29.230 --> 00:26:32.890
a little bit of that weight discounts and see, can
479
00:26:32.910 --> 00:26:35.309
you do one or two more? That's where the growth is.
480
00:26:36.829 --> 00:26:39.930
Just wondering about the order of operations here, because you
481
00:26:39.990 --> 00:26:43.210
start with the zone, then you talk about normalizing and
482
00:26:43.230 --> 00:26:47.420
being okay with quote unquote failure. And then finally, it's
483
00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:50.940
about finding the right contrast, like between the way you're
484
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:52.990
doing it and the way a master would do it.
485
00:26:53.500 --> 00:26:57.440
I'm just wondering, should we maybe start with normalizing failure?
486
00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:02.119
Yeah. So I guess it helps. So when we work
487
00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:05.359
in the learning context, in education, in the schools or workplace,
488
00:27:06.259 --> 00:27:09.309
it always helps to have a conversation about why we
489
00:27:09.349 --> 00:27:13.049
are changing the way we are learning new things. So
490
00:27:13.170 --> 00:27:15.990
if you at the workplace or in school are used
491
00:27:16.009 --> 00:27:19.849
to just from direct instruction, then people would be curious,
492
00:27:19.869 --> 00:27:21.730
why are you doing it this way? So yeah, it
493
00:27:21.789 --> 00:27:24.910
definitely helps to talk about it and explain to them
494
00:27:24.950 --> 00:27:28.049
the logic of it and, of course, set the expectations.
495
00:27:29.200 --> 00:27:32.339
And the expectations we set for students, at least, is
496
00:27:32.380 --> 00:27:35.579
that we're going to give you something challenging. You're not
497
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:38.480
expected to be able to solve it correctly. What I
498
00:27:38.539 --> 00:27:42.140
care is you try different ideas without worrying about getting
499
00:27:42.180 --> 00:27:44.289
it right or wrong. That's the message.
500
00:27:45.230 --> 00:27:47.710
You write about something called the looking back hack. Is
501
00:27:47.730 --> 00:27:49.069
that relevant to this conversation?
502
00:27:49.910 --> 00:27:53.630
That's a motivation kind of a thing. You want to
503
00:27:53.670 --> 00:27:57.180
do your 20 laps, for example. If you're Early on,
504
00:27:57.400 --> 00:27:59.839
if you've just started and you've done first two or
505
00:27:59.859 --> 00:28:02.019
three laps, and if you look back how much you've come,
506
00:28:02.759 --> 00:28:06.329
it helps you see that you've actually made some progress.
507
00:28:06.920 --> 00:28:08.690
You had one and then now you're three times at
508
00:28:08.809 --> 00:28:12.069
one or four times. What we end up doing is
509
00:28:12.130 --> 00:28:15.750
we look to the goal. And we say, we've got 16,
510
00:28:15.750 --> 00:28:18.630
my God, I've got 18 left and now 17 left.
511
00:28:19.269 --> 00:28:23.769
So if you look forward to the goal, then it's
512
00:28:23.829 --> 00:28:27.509
very demotivating. But if you look back from where you
513
00:28:27.549 --> 00:28:31.089
came from, then it's a bit more motivating. It's just
514
00:28:31.569 --> 00:28:35.809
hacking your psychology to do a comparison in a way
515
00:28:35.869 --> 00:28:38.069
that motivates you to keep going.
516
00:28:38.930 --> 00:28:40.970
But it strikes me that maybe there's a balance here
517
00:28:41.059 --> 00:28:44.460
because it's also important to move the goalposts in order
518
00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:45.319
to grow.
519
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:48.960
Yeah, yeah. So as you go from in the early
520
00:28:49.940 --> 00:28:52.019
stages of trying, so if you're in the first few laps,
521
00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:54.720
it's good to look back. And then something happens in
522
00:28:54.740 --> 00:28:56.519
the middle that the more you do it, the more
523
00:28:56.539 --> 00:28:58.940
motivated you get towards the goal. So it's called the
524
00:28:58.980 --> 00:29:03.140
goal gradient effect. So the more laps you've had, the
525
00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:05.940
more motivated you are to complete it. And then something
526
00:29:05.980 --> 00:29:08.819
happens as you're near the completion of the goal. That
527
00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:11.619
motivates you even more. I'm almost there. That's why you
528
00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:14.740
find the last, you know, as you find second wind,
529
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:17.660
athletes find, you know, some ways of just finishing out
530
00:29:17.720 --> 00:29:19.990
very strong. And a lot of that has to do
531
00:29:20.039 --> 00:29:23.079
with mental strength and motivation. So at different stages of
532
00:29:23.140 --> 00:29:25.839
achieving the goal, you have that. And you're right that
533
00:29:26.099 --> 00:29:28.880
many times, if you can break the big goals into
534
00:29:28.940 --> 00:29:32.289
smaller goals, let me just do the first five. Once
535
00:29:32.309 --> 00:29:34.329
I've done the first five, then I'll worry about the next.
536
00:29:34.869 --> 00:29:36.450
Chances are when you get to the first five, you
537
00:29:36.470 --> 00:29:38.710
already want to do the next one. But then you
538
00:29:38.730 --> 00:29:41.410
only focus on fives. at a time. So breaking it down,
539
00:29:41.430 --> 00:29:43.569
it also helps a lot.
540
00:29:44.009 --> 00:29:46.779
So if I'm hearing you correctly, there's a toggling back
541
00:29:46.819 --> 00:29:48.559
and forth that we might want to do if we're
542
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:52.619
tackling something new. The looking back hack, which allows us
543
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:56.480
to give ourselves some credit since we are prone to
544
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:00.289
judging ourselves against the ultimate goal, which we haven't yet achieved,
545
00:30:00.690 --> 00:30:03.130
and which other people may have achieved, and we're stuck
546
00:30:03.170 --> 00:30:06.490
in a comparing mindset, that's helpful and can provide some
547
00:30:06.930 --> 00:30:11.690
motivation and make us feel good about ourselves. Simultaneously, or
548
00:30:11.890 --> 00:30:16.509
at other times, it may be smart to look forward
549
00:30:16.529 --> 00:30:19.450
strategically and move the goalposts so we continue to grow,
550
00:30:19.779 --> 00:30:22.880
and we move back and forth between these two worldviews.
551
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:27.119
Exactly. And knowing yourself well enough, and this again is
552
00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:30.279
an ability you train because you It's you're hacking your
553
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:33.799
own motivation, knowing how often to toggle back and forth
554
00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:36.440
or when to toggle back and forth. It's itself a
555
00:30:36.460 --> 00:30:39.230
skill that you need to develop. Yes. No matter what
556
00:30:39.250 --> 00:30:40.369
you're trying. Yeah. Yes.
557
00:30:40.809 --> 00:30:46.390
Yes. Okay. So let's talk about some specific use cases
558
00:30:46.529 --> 00:30:50.109
for this model. One of them that you write about,
559
00:30:50.150 --> 00:30:52.170
I believe is difficult conversations.
560
00:30:52.190 --> 00:30:55.920
You know, having a conversation, say with your partner or
561
00:30:55.930 --> 00:30:59.230
with your peer, It's much harder, or even with your boss,
562
00:30:59.269 --> 00:31:02.589
for example, it's much harder than having a conversation with
563
00:31:02.630 --> 00:31:05.470
your subordinate or your junior and so on. And I
564
00:31:05.509 --> 00:31:09.369
think designing a safe space within which you can have
565
00:31:09.430 --> 00:31:13.109
that conversation, when you do that, you're actually putting yourself
566
00:31:13.170 --> 00:31:17.609
in a zone where it's unfamiliar, it's uncomfortable. You may
567
00:31:17.650 --> 00:31:21.109
struggle to explain even, you know, string sentences in a
568
00:31:21.150 --> 00:31:24.509
way that communicate what you're trying to mean. That sets
569
00:31:24.569 --> 00:31:27.400
up the stage where If you have an expert or
570
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.849
somebody who can guide you through that process as a contrast,
571
00:31:31.690 --> 00:31:34.849
then that helps you learn, reflect back on what you
572
00:31:34.869 --> 00:31:38.289
did and how you communicated with the experts. And then
573
00:31:38.670 --> 00:31:41.289
in the contrast, you learn how to make those conversations better.
574
00:31:41.869 --> 00:31:44.809
So if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is, okay,
575
00:31:44.849 --> 00:31:48.119
I've got a big conversation coming up with either my
576
00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:52.420
romantic partner or my boss or maybe a kid, somebody
577
00:31:52.460 --> 00:31:55.660
important to me. I'm worried about it. because the stakes
578
00:31:55.700 --> 00:31:59.240
are high, either for my livelihood or for my day-to-day life,
579
00:31:59.759 --> 00:32:02.460
or both. And so what you're saying is practice it.
580
00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:06.769
Find somebody with whom you can practice this conversation, where
581
00:32:06.789 --> 00:32:09.609
you can safely screw it up and get feedback so
582
00:32:09.650 --> 00:32:13.849
that when you go into it, you feel reasonably confident. Exactly.
583
00:32:14.089 --> 00:32:16.599
And you can try different things. I mean, the multiplicity
584
00:32:16.650 --> 00:32:19.759
also matters, that you don't try one way of conversing,
585
00:32:19.779 --> 00:32:23.160
you try multiple ways. And nowadays with these large language
586
00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:26.400
models and... your chatbots. I mean, they're very well trained
587
00:32:26.440 --> 00:32:29.319
and you can even prompt them to behave in certain
588
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:32.900
ways or behave in difficult ways or behave in emotional
589
00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:36.059
ways or behave in very logical ways and to see
590
00:32:36.099 --> 00:32:40.109
how you respond. So have that conversation without learning the recipe.
591
00:32:40.730 --> 00:32:46.329
I guess we are so used to seeking out examples
592
00:32:46.630 --> 00:32:50.599
as the start of learning something new. We are so
593
00:32:50.710 --> 00:32:54.329
used to doing that, that we lose this initial power
594
00:32:54.349 --> 00:32:56.750
that maybe we should try it ourselves before we seek
595
00:32:56.789 --> 00:33:00.779
the example. And it's what you do. So seeking the
596
00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:05.059
example is perfectly all right, but exploring a little bit,
597
00:33:05.119 --> 00:33:07.579
making it a little bit harder for yourself, if you can,
598
00:33:08.299 --> 00:33:12.640
before that as preparation to learn from the example is
599
00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:13.480
the critical point.
600
00:33:14.819 --> 00:33:17.940
But it's counterintuitive. I mean, I'll speak for myself. It's
601
00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:21.670
not my instinct. My instinct is to go look at
602
00:33:21.710 --> 00:33:26.829
somebody acing it, and then immediately wallow in the massive
603
00:33:26.890 --> 00:33:28.849
delta between my capacities and theirs.
604
00:33:29.430 --> 00:33:35.359
Yeah. It's intuitive, but it's not optimal. It's an illusion
605
00:33:35.559 --> 00:33:40.380
that just by seeing the expert or the perfect example
606
00:33:40.420 --> 00:33:43.539
or somebody who's acing it, that you will learn how to.
607
00:33:43.980 --> 00:33:45.559
And I talk about this in the book, and it's
608
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:48.819
the concept of seeing. And the idea that just because
609
00:33:48.839 --> 00:33:51.039
you can look at something does not mean you see
610
00:33:51.079 --> 00:33:54.599
what is critical. If you're an art novice like me,
611
00:33:54.920 --> 00:33:58.450
giving you different paintings by experts, you and I will
612
00:33:58.470 --> 00:34:01.569
see very different things in those paintings than an expert
613
00:34:01.609 --> 00:34:04.009
in art who'd be able to look at the brush
614
00:34:04.049 --> 00:34:07.369
stroke and the color and angles and blah, blah, blah.
615
00:34:07.450 --> 00:34:10.710
It's right in front of us. So seeing is not
616
00:34:10.750 --> 00:34:12.929
just a perceptual thing. Oh, I looked at how you
617
00:34:12.969 --> 00:34:15.929
did it or I read what you wrote. No. Seeing
618
00:34:15.989 --> 00:34:20.159
is a cognitive exercise. You need knowledge. You need some
619
00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:24.300
background knowledge to actually see what is critical. And failure,
620
00:34:24.460 --> 00:34:28.019
when you try multiple things by yourself, that builds up
621
00:34:28.059 --> 00:34:31.219
the knowledge and the experience that prepares you to then
622
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:33.920
see what is important. So if you did this initial
623
00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:39.280
exploration and failure and then saw the perfect example, then
624
00:34:39.340 --> 00:34:42.079
you immediately start to see, ah, now I see it.
625
00:34:42.750 --> 00:34:45.329
The same example up front, you will not see it.
626
00:34:45.449 --> 00:34:46.429
And I think that's the key.
627
00:34:47.429 --> 00:34:50.329
Right. That's the key, but it does. I mean, we
628
00:34:50.369 --> 00:34:53.800
need to normalize this idea that it's okay to try.
629
00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:57.599
It's actually optimal to try and fail and then do
630
00:34:57.659 --> 00:35:00.460
some healthy comparison to other people.
631
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:01.159
Exactly.
632
00:35:01.300 --> 00:35:03.039
But this does feel, and this is why I keep
633
00:35:03.079 --> 00:35:05.099
coming back to it. It does feel like a real
634
00:35:05.179 --> 00:35:09.869
barrier amongst the homo sapiens right now that we need
635
00:35:09.889 --> 00:35:12.059
to like And I guess it's your job on the
636
00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:15.699
planet right now to gently nudge people in this direction. Exactly.
637
00:35:15.780 --> 00:35:19.469
Imitation is such a powerful learning mechanism. I'm not denying that, right?
638
00:35:19.510 --> 00:35:21.829
You see, monkey see, monkey do. You learn from the
639
00:35:21.969 --> 00:35:26.210
experience and expertise. It is a very powerful learning method.
640
00:35:27.010 --> 00:35:31.480
I'm just giving it an extra amp by saying you
641
00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:35.380
get there, use that example, learn from others. But if
642
00:35:35.420 --> 00:35:37.860
you want to derive even better bang for the buck,
643
00:35:38.099 --> 00:35:41.809
do something yourself first. in this particular way, and then
644
00:35:41.829 --> 00:35:43.630
you'll derive even more from the same thing.
645
00:35:44.889 --> 00:35:47.150
I do want to emphasize something you said earlier about chatbots.
646
00:35:47.730 --> 00:35:52.179
I'm a regular user of ChatGPT. I'm not a sponsor
647
00:35:52.219 --> 00:35:54.960
of this show, so I'm not advertising for ChatGPT or
648
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:58.840
any LLM. I'm just saying I've, just to back up,
649
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:02.679
I have been behind the curve on every technological revolution
650
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:06.500
of my lifetime. So when everybody started talking about AI,
651
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:10.429
I was like, I'm going to use this now. So
652
00:36:10.590 --> 00:36:14.099
I've gotten very much into the habit of using ChatGPT.
653
00:36:14.139 --> 00:36:16.280
That's just because it's the best known. So again, I'm
654
00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:19.559
not advertising for that particular company. But this idea, I
655
00:36:19.820 --> 00:36:22.940
can imagine people listening to this with me saying, find
656
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:27.159
somebody who's a good conversation partner to practice your upcoming
657
00:36:27.179 --> 00:36:29.989
conversation with. And I can imagine people thinking, well, I
658
00:36:29.989 --> 00:36:32.469
don't have that person. Everybody I know is a moron,
659
00:36:32.510 --> 00:36:34.489
or I don't know that many people, or whatever it is,
660
00:36:34.550 --> 00:36:37.269
or I'm not comfortable enough to be vulnerable. I mean,
661
00:36:37.289 --> 00:36:39.730
it's a great piece of advice to use a chatbot.
662
00:36:40.239 --> 00:36:42.719
There's so many problems with AI, but this is a
663
00:36:42.860 --> 00:36:45.969
really good use case for AI. Exactly.
664
00:36:46.219 --> 00:36:47.949
And you use it in a way that it doesn't
665
00:36:47.989 --> 00:36:51.949
give you the answer. It supports your exploration. It supports
666
00:36:51.989 --> 00:36:54.889
your messing up in a safe way. The goal is
667
00:36:54.929 --> 00:36:57.670
preparation for learning, not just getting to the answer.
668
00:36:58.449 --> 00:37:00.349
I think it can do both. I think you can
669
00:37:00.409 --> 00:37:02.469
start by saying, I want to practice a conversation with you,
670
00:37:02.510 --> 00:37:04.070
but then give me some feedback later.
671
00:37:04.440 --> 00:37:05.360
Exactly, exactly.
672
00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:09.769
Okay, so... Other ways to apply productive failure in our
673
00:37:09.829 --> 00:37:12.780
own lives. What about with creative pursuits?
674
00:37:13.500 --> 00:37:16.840
Yeah, I mean, in creativity, for example, I mean, creativity
675
00:37:16.860 --> 00:37:20.769
is the idea of connecting two things that seem disconnected
676
00:37:20.889 --> 00:37:23.110
or you don't see the link. And one of my
677
00:37:23.739 --> 00:37:26.380
favorite methods in, you know, creativity is to use the
678
00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:29.739
counterfactuals or to use methods. So for example, I would
679
00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:32.530
ask my students or even my own children, you know,
680
00:37:32.550 --> 00:37:35.570
if they're exploring something, if they're trying to build using blocks,
681
00:37:35.670 --> 00:37:37.929
or if they're trying to solve a math problem, I
682
00:37:37.969 --> 00:37:40.289
will always ask them, okay, show me how you've done
683
00:37:40.349 --> 00:37:43.530
it and say, when they get stuck, instead of telling
684
00:37:43.570 --> 00:37:45.550
them the right answer, I'll give them another method that
685
00:37:45.719 --> 00:37:48.440
is known not to work. And so the idea is
686
00:37:48.500 --> 00:37:52.420
that you can try multiple things and in trying to
687
00:37:52.789 --> 00:37:56.070
The things that do not work, it gives you insight
688
00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:00.119
into what does not work, and that sets the basis
689
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:03.360
for new novel ideas insights. It's very powerful, and this
690
00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:05.619
is how some of the brilliant insights in science have
691
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:10.440
also come about, quite naturally. Thinking deeply about things that
692
00:38:10.460 --> 00:38:14.079
do not work sometimes forces us to question or see
693
00:38:14.119 --> 00:38:17.420
the underlying assumptions of that entire paradigm, and some of
694
00:38:17.440 --> 00:38:21.380
the biggest breakthroughs then come from questioning that paradigm, questioning
695
00:38:21.420 --> 00:38:25.980
those assumptions. That's what big C creativity is. But even
696
00:38:26.019 --> 00:38:29.909
the small C creativity in context, you know, situational creativity
697
00:38:30.590 --> 00:38:33.610
is also really good when you actually deliberately give people
698
00:38:33.650 --> 00:38:37.690
things that do not work because they derive insights. So
699
00:38:37.710 --> 00:38:39.989
it's like my professor in college, you know, when I
700
00:38:40.030 --> 00:38:44.400
was doing my final year thesis in engineering school and
701
00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:46.960
I had to solve, I had to model, solve this
702
00:38:47.019 --> 00:38:51.119
particular math differential equation. And he said, okay, go and
703
00:38:51.139 --> 00:38:54.170
solve it mathematically. I tried you know, a month, many,
704
00:38:54.210 --> 00:38:55.989
many different ways. It didn't work. I came back to
705
00:38:56.030 --> 00:38:58.489
him and he said, oh, okay, you tried this very good.
706
00:38:58.550 --> 00:39:01.730
Now you go and try this method. And I tried that.
707
00:39:03.050 --> 00:39:05.190
And again, after a month, I said, no, prof, this
708
00:39:05.210 --> 00:39:07.559
doesn't work. He said, oh, okay, all right, but have
709
00:39:07.579 --> 00:39:09.599
you tried this another method? And this goes on for
710
00:39:09.619 --> 00:39:12.519
a few months. And after about five or six months,
711
00:39:12.619 --> 00:39:15.480
you know, I'm getting, you know, a bit panicked because
712
00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:18.599
my scholarship's running out and I need to graduate. And
713
00:39:18.619 --> 00:39:21.619
the guy tells me, oh, don't worry about it. All
714
00:39:21.659 --> 00:39:23.760
the methods I've shared with you are known not to work.
715
00:39:26.380 --> 00:39:28.639
And that was like, at the time I was so
716
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:31.360
angry with him, I was a little bit, but then, yeah,
717
00:39:31.400 --> 00:39:35.179
he was right. I understood the problem that I was
718
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:39.590
trying to solve in a way, through those failed methods,
719
00:39:39.730 --> 00:39:42.969
in a way that I just never understood it. And
720
00:39:43.070 --> 00:39:46.289
that understanding of the problem itself gives you very deep
721
00:39:46.329 --> 00:39:48.969
insights as to how creatively you can solve it in
722
00:39:49.010 --> 00:39:49.380
other ways.
723
00:39:51.269 --> 00:39:55.440
Okay, let's talk about how we can nudge others toward
724
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:58.699
productive failure. There are some very specific questions I want
725
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:01.900
to ask you, but just broadly speaking, how can we
726
00:40:01.940 --> 00:40:04.090
think about this? Just one last thing before I let
727
00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:07.670
you talk. I think about this in two ways. As
728
00:40:07.710 --> 00:40:11.469
a boss, I have a very small little company, about
729
00:40:11.469 --> 00:40:14.349
10 people, but I want people to feel comfortable taking
730
00:40:14.590 --> 00:40:16.800
risks and failing, and also as a parent.
731
00:40:17.559 --> 00:40:20.210
Yeah. So let's talk about as a boss, right? And
732
00:40:20.230 --> 00:40:22.469
you're looking at your team. I think it's good to,
733
00:40:22.510 --> 00:40:26.170
when you're thinking about others, actually also for yourself, it applies.
734
00:40:26.190 --> 00:40:31.789
I draw a distinction between learning and performance. So when
735
00:40:31.809 --> 00:40:33.889
you're in the learning zone, we talked all about, you
736
00:40:33.909 --> 00:40:36.789
have to experience that initial failure. By definition, you're in
737
00:40:36.809 --> 00:40:40.719
the zone where your current skill sets and capabilities are
738
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:44.460
not enough to do the task correctly. The performance zone
739
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:47.019
is different. Performance zone is you already have the expertise
740
00:40:47.159 --> 00:40:51.019
and the goal is to apply it successfully. So, you know,
741
00:40:51.139 --> 00:40:53.380
you want to meditate, you meditate successfully. You want to
742
00:40:53.420 --> 00:40:56.530
drive the car, you drive the car without getting into
743
00:40:56.570 --> 00:41:00.010
an accident. You want to operate, you operate with perfection,
744
00:41:00.829 --> 00:41:02.510
you know, and so on. So you have a project
745
00:41:02.590 --> 00:41:04.849
or you need to give a talk, you do it
746
00:41:05.190 --> 00:41:08.309
because you have the expertise to deliver. That's performance zone.
747
00:41:08.789 --> 00:41:11.619
And at work, especially when you're working with teams, if
748
00:41:11.679 --> 00:41:15.579
the bulk of the team's work is in the performance zone,
749
00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:18.780
then you're basically setting up a team that is very
750
00:41:18.820 --> 00:41:20.940
high in productivity. I mean, they can deliver a lot
751
00:41:20.980 --> 00:41:23.760
of good, but they're not learning new things over time.
752
00:41:24.900 --> 00:41:28.429
Whereas if you also balance this performance zone with learning
753
00:41:28.469 --> 00:41:30.989
or growth tasks, so give them a project, for example,
754
00:41:31.750 --> 00:41:34.230
that you know they can't do it by themselves or
755
00:41:34.269 --> 00:41:36.929
their current skill sets and abilities, or give them a
756
00:41:36.949 --> 00:41:42.429
cross-functional task across the organization, which they will definitely fail
757
00:41:42.449 --> 00:41:46.480
to perform or give them your own sort of suboptimal
758
00:41:46.500 --> 00:41:50.059
strategic plan and say, well, can you criticize it as
759
00:41:50.099 --> 00:41:53.880
though it has already failed? Can you poke holes at it? Again,
760
00:41:53.980 --> 00:41:57.119
all of these are examples of designing these deep learning
761
00:41:57.199 --> 00:42:00.460
tasks or challenges that are beyond their skill sets and abilities.
762
00:42:01.139 --> 00:42:04.480
And if you design them into the portfolio, you have
763
00:42:04.500 --> 00:42:05.159
a better balance.
764
00:42:06.139 --> 00:42:08.179
My hesitation as I'm listening to you is like, all right,
765
00:42:08.219 --> 00:42:10.869
my team already has plenty of shit to do. So
766
00:42:10.969 --> 00:42:13.070
if I start assigning them stuff that I know they
767
00:42:13.150 --> 00:42:15.349
can't do, I'm going to burn them out.
768
00:42:16.190 --> 00:42:18.429
And that's the role of a leader to design the
769
00:42:18.469 --> 00:42:20.510
space in a way that you don't burn them out.
770
00:42:20.579 --> 00:42:23.340
I mean, your responsibility as a leader, me as a leader,
771
00:42:23.380 --> 00:42:27.360
my own team, is not just to exploit their capabilities
772
00:42:28.059 --> 00:42:30.860
to end, it's for them to grow as well. So
773
00:42:31.019 --> 00:42:33.150
I would do a task audit and say, well, if
774
00:42:33.550 --> 00:42:38.650
all your time is going into performance and high performance tasks,
775
00:42:39.139 --> 00:42:42.659
That's great, you have the capabilities, but I also need
776
00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:47.059
to help you grow and build new capabilities. That's a
777
00:42:47.079 --> 00:42:49.920
question that you have to decide with your team, how
778
00:42:49.960 --> 00:42:53.679
much of the time you spend on learning or growth
779
00:42:53.719 --> 00:42:56.519
tasks and how much of it is on performance tasks.
780
00:42:56.920 --> 00:42:59.840
If a company does its entire work in high productivity,
781
00:42:59.880 --> 00:43:03.889
high performance, it's a short-term game. It's a short-term strategy.
782
00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:07.909
Somebody else innovates and builds new things, it can completely
783
00:43:07.969 --> 00:43:11.269
undercut you. So you need to design that dynamic, the
784
00:43:11.449 --> 00:43:15.190
growth dynamic, the innovation dynamic as a balance to your
785
00:43:15.510 --> 00:43:17.429
performance and exploitation dynamic.
786
00:43:18.110 --> 00:43:20.510
I completely buy that. I think where I was going
787
00:43:20.530 --> 00:43:23.800
with this is when I hear you talk, what I'm
788
00:43:23.880 --> 00:43:26.440
tempted to do as a way to operationalize your ideas
789
00:43:26.659 --> 00:43:29.440
is to allow people on the team, and we already
790
00:43:29.460 --> 00:43:31.500
do a little bit of this, to take on new
791
00:43:31.579 --> 00:43:33.170
things that are risky and we don't know if it's
792
00:43:33.190 --> 00:43:35.489
going to work and to create the space for them
793
00:43:35.530 --> 00:43:38.210
to do that. As opposed to what I thought I
794
00:43:38.250 --> 00:43:41.510
was hearing you say was, I'm going to design some
795
00:43:41.630 --> 00:43:44.730
unwinnable tasks for you on top of all the other
796
00:43:44.769 --> 00:43:47.030
shit I'm asking you to do. And so to me,
797
00:43:47.389 --> 00:43:49.510
those feel like distinct approaches.
798
00:43:50.489 --> 00:43:53.489
To me, it's a matter of degree, right? So one
799
00:43:53.570 --> 00:43:55.900
is really challenging them to the extreme. The other one
800
00:43:56.639 --> 00:43:59.400
is nudging them just a little bit beyond where they are.
801
00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:02.719
And in a given context, you can decide one or
802
00:44:02.760 --> 00:44:05.260
the other. So how far you want to push people.
803
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:08.480
I think in science we push pretty hard because we
804
00:44:08.539 --> 00:44:11.579
really do take on challenging tasks, but maybe at other
805
00:44:11.619 --> 00:44:14.340
times a little nudge beyond your current space is also good.
806
00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:16.900
This is going to sound like a statement, but I
807
00:44:16.940 --> 00:44:18.820
really mean it as a question. In my mind, it
808
00:44:18.840 --> 00:44:22.159
could be a nudge or just rewarding people who have
809
00:44:22.179 --> 00:44:24.409
creative ideas and saying, all right, go try it. We'll
810
00:44:24.489 --> 00:44:26.289
create the space for you to go try this thing.
811
00:44:26.769 --> 00:44:29.349
Yeah, and I call it looking for the failure signal.
812
00:44:29.650 --> 00:44:31.170
So one of some of the things that I do
813
00:44:31.190 --> 00:44:33.969
with my team is Okay, when you're doing a performance
814
00:44:33.989 --> 00:44:37.429
evaluation or appraisal, taking stock of the work, it says,
815
00:44:37.469 --> 00:44:40.710
tell me the things you tried that didn't work out.
816
00:44:41.309 --> 00:44:43.929
And here we're not talking about things not working out
817
00:44:43.949 --> 00:44:47.750
because of laziness or incompetence or stupidity. We're talking about
818
00:44:48.030 --> 00:44:51.349
things not working out because they were genuinely hard things,
819
00:44:52.210 --> 00:44:55.900
generally challenging things or crazy ideas that they tried. And
820
00:44:55.940 --> 00:44:59.019
if they can't point to things like that in their portfolio,
821
00:44:59.579 --> 00:45:02.809
then you start to question. Where's your failure signal? Are
822
00:45:02.849 --> 00:45:07.250
you pushing beyond the boundaries of your current thinking? Because innovation,
823
00:45:07.309 --> 00:45:09.820
if you think about it, if everything that you tried
824
00:45:09.889 --> 00:45:14.400
and if it succeeds, then chances are there's no innovation there.
825
00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:17.340
It's only when you can tell me, hey, I tried
826
00:45:17.340 --> 00:45:21.320
10 things this year, 10 projects, five of them worked wonderfully,
827
00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:26.110
three absolutely crashed, and two, we are still struggling to
828
00:45:26.150 --> 00:45:29.369
make sense. To me, that's a good balance. That's a good,
829
00:45:29.429 --> 00:45:32.809
healthy portfolio. that shows at some points you were really
830
00:45:32.869 --> 00:45:36.090
exploiting your capabilities, other points you were really pushing beyond
831
00:45:36.329 --> 00:45:40.079
boundaries and things don't work out. And some are in
832
00:45:40.119 --> 00:45:42.920
the middle. Just last week, I was at a fireside
833
00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:47.340
chat with a very successful investment professional. And he said, oh,
834
00:45:47.380 --> 00:45:50.579
that reminds me of our investment portfolio analysis. And we
835
00:45:50.619 --> 00:45:52.989
say that if all your assets are performing very well,
836
00:45:53.590 --> 00:45:56.530
it means your portfolio is not very well designed. You're
837
00:45:56.550 --> 00:45:59.389
not pushing the envelope. So you have to have some
838
00:45:59.469 --> 00:46:03.170
assets that are not performing Not because of laziness or
839
00:46:03.250 --> 00:46:07.230
stupidity or something like that. It's because you're genuinely designing new,
840
00:46:07.309 --> 00:46:11.219
innovative products. And that leaves you open to some level
841
00:46:11.239 --> 00:46:11.659
of failure.
842
00:46:16.219 --> 00:46:19.940
Coming up, Manu talks about some more key components for designing, normalizing,
843
00:46:20.039 --> 00:46:24.320
and welcoming productive failure, the role of psychological safety, and
844
00:46:24.360 --> 00:46:37.860
having a growth mindset, and more. I believe you write
845
00:46:37.889 --> 00:46:41.710
about this, but there are two concepts that seem key
846
00:46:42.550 --> 00:46:47.269
if you're trying to create an environment where productive failure
847
00:46:47.550 --> 00:46:51.250
is normalized and welcomed. One of them is psychological safety
848
00:46:51.289 --> 00:46:53.769
and the other is a growth mindset. Let's start with
849
00:46:53.789 --> 00:46:56.829
psychological safety. Can you define that and describe it?
850
00:46:57.829 --> 00:47:00.329
Well, as an idea, as a construct, it's more than
851
00:47:00.329 --> 00:47:04.170
70 years old. It came in the 1950s. And basically,
852
00:47:05.250 --> 00:47:08.019
the idea is that You need to create a context
853
00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:12.900
or a culture where people feel safe enough to talk
854
00:47:12.940 --> 00:47:16.610
about their errors and mistakes and that they wouldn't be
855
00:47:16.659 --> 00:47:21.269
penalized for it. It's not about avoiding difficult conversations. It's
856
00:47:21.309 --> 00:47:24.369
about feeling safe that you can have those difficult conversations
857
00:47:24.409 --> 00:47:27.949
with people. And when you create those kinds of safe spaces,
858
00:47:28.690 --> 00:47:31.989
also by modeling it yourself, if you're the leader, then
859
00:47:32.030 --> 00:47:34.909
those are the spaces with which you create these cultures
860
00:47:34.949 --> 00:47:37.889
and these can be very powerful. The associate idea is
861
00:47:38.130 --> 00:47:41.150
that of growth mindset and there the idea is that
862
00:47:42.030 --> 00:47:48.980
not everything initially leads to high performance. Sometimes just struggling
863
00:47:49.019 --> 00:47:53.179
and failing and persisting in these challenging tasks leads to
864
00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:56.320
a lot of growth. You learn how to stay in
865
00:47:56.380 --> 00:47:59.110
these zones that lead to deep learning. So if you
866
00:47:59.139 --> 00:48:03.449
focus on your personal growth or your team's growth over
867
00:48:03.530 --> 00:48:08.429
time that effort matters, that with effort, with persistent effort,
868
00:48:08.469 --> 00:48:12.050
you can grow and learn deeply, then that's more important
869
00:48:12.090 --> 00:48:15.760
than the early successes because that undercuts the need for
870
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:20.820
persistent efforts. Sometimes very bright people or very talented people
871
00:48:20.860 --> 00:48:23.719
have that problem as well because things come so easy
872
00:48:24.159 --> 00:48:27.739
to them that they never learn how to persist through
873
00:48:27.780 --> 00:48:28.940
tough things.
874
00:48:29.619 --> 00:48:32.239
It becomes an issue of identity. If you tell yourself
875
00:48:32.300 --> 00:48:35.000
a story that I'm in a process of growth, well,
876
00:48:35.019 --> 00:48:37.300
then failure is allowed. But if you tell yourself a
877
00:48:37.320 --> 00:48:39.440
story that I need to ace it every time, which
878
00:48:39.460 --> 00:48:42.639
I believe is called a performance mindset, well, the first
879
00:48:42.699 --> 00:48:44.880
failure undercuts your ego.
880
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:47.980
Exactly. And then you just say, oh, maybe this is
881
00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:49.920
not for me, or you don't try. So when you're
882
00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:52.639
in the growth mindset, you naturally take on tougher tasks,
883
00:48:52.760 --> 00:48:55.900
more challenging tasks. If you don't have the growth mindset,
884
00:48:55.920 --> 00:48:57.639
you always seek out tasks that you know you can
885
00:48:57.679 --> 00:48:58.199
succeed at.
886
00:48:59.340 --> 00:49:02.590
So how do we, as leaders, in a professional context,
887
00:49:02.639 --> 00:49:04.599
and we'll talk about parenting in a second, how do
888
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:07.920
we inculcate in people a growth mindset and how do
889
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:09.860
we create psychological safety?
890
00:49:11.019 --> 00:49:14.650
Part of it is, of course, talking about it. So
891
00:49:14.690 --> 00:49:17.829
I think people come into any workplace or any learning
892
00:49:17.889 --> 00:49:21.809
situation with certain assumptions they make about what is valued
893
00:49:22.050 --> 00:49:25.929
in that space. So I may go into a classroom
894
00:49:25.949 --> 00:49:29.570
thinking the teachers always want the correct answers. And if
895
00:49:29.650 --> 00:49:33.349
I think my boss always wants the correct answers to things,
896
00:49:33.929 --> 00:49:36.670
then I better make sure that I give him or
897
00:49:36.730 --> 00:49:38.570
her the correct answer. And if I don't have the
898
00:49:38.590 --> 00:49:41.920
correct answer, I just stay put. Well, that would basically
899
00:49:41.980 --> 00:49:45.559
take all ideation and exploration out because you're always limited
900
00:49:45.639 --> 00:49:49.719
by getting to the correct answer. So talking about the
901
00:49:49.780 --> 00:49:53.750
values and reinforcing the values that you want people to
902
00:49:54.610 --> 00:49:57.809
enculturate or to internalize, I think that's definitely a very
903
00:49:57.929 --> 00:50:01.329
good starting point. Then modeling it. As a leader, you
904
00:50:01.349 --> 00:50:04.309
have a power differential. So your modeling matters a lot
905
00:50:04.349 --> 00:50:07.190
more than anybody else. So if you're not matching your
906
00:50:07.250 --> 00:50:11.269
words with action, then it's not going to happen. You always,
907
00:50:11.630 --> 00:50:14.309
when you do your project reviews or after action reviews
908
00:50:14.369 --> 00:50:16.550
and so on and so forth, if you want to
909
00:50:16.590 --> 00:50:19.530
criticize or give feedback on the work, on the idea
910
00:50:19.750 --> 00:50:24.050
and not the person, so that you're critiquing the act,
911
00:50:24.210 --> 00:50:27.570
not the actor. That also becomes a very important aspect
912
00:50:27.690 --> 00:50:32.159
of making people safe in that space. Yeah, and then
913
00:50:32.199 --> 00:50:37.579
rewarding people who actually take on tough challenges or rewarding
914
00:50:37.639 --> 00:50:41.699
people who ask difficult questions. People can see, like when
915
00:50:41.820 --> 00:50:45.559
people who are congratulated or, you know, are said that
916
00:50:45.619 --> 00:50:49.039
I appreciated your asking such a difficult question and must
917
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:51.659
not have been easy for you to ask me this
918
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:54.800
question because of a power differential or I'm your boss,
919
00:50:55.380 --> 00:50:57.360
but please know that I appreciate and do more of
920
00:50:57.420 --> 00:50:59.719
this because that's only good for all of us. And
921
00:50:59.780 --> 00:51:03.570
if everybody sees that, that again creates a very safe space.
922
00:51:03.769 --> 00:51:07.010
It's a system of values, again, that gets reinforced. Again,
923
00:51:07.070 --> 00:51:08.829
you can do this not just at the work. You
924
00:51:08.849 --> 00:51:10.530
said parenting, you can do the same thing with your
925
00:51:10.550 --> 00:51:14.650
child as well. So the principles are the same across
926
00:51:14.710 --> 00:51:17.389
different contexts, and they are very powerful.
927
00:51:17.989 --> 00:51:21.150
I heard my son, he's 10, he started playing lacrosse
928
00:51:21.190 --> 00:51:24.480
this year, and he was talking to one of his
929
00:51:24.539 --> 00:51:26.760
friends about how, you know, I'm not good at defense.
930
00:51:26.820 --> 00:51:28.960
I'm good at being a middie or a midfielder or
931
00:51:28.980 --> 00:51:31.639
whatever it is. And I was like, bro, you just
932
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:34.980
started this thing. You're telling yourself, This concrete story about
933
00:51:35.019 --> 00:51:37.119
what you're good at, what you're not, you don't know anything. Like,
934
00:51:37.519 --> 00:51:39.360
I'm not sure that was the right parenting move, but
935
00:51:39.420 --> 00:51:42.059
I did notice that he was stuck in a fixed
936
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:43.159
story about himself.
937
00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:47.179
Yeah, yeah. And we tell these stories to ourselves and
938
00:51:47.750 --> 00:51:50.250
those are not good for growth mindset, right? So if
939
00:51:50.269 --> 00:51:52.329
you have a growth mindset, you can, you should probably
940
00:51:52.349 --> 00:51:55.369
tell him, just try it. Just try playing in a
941
00:51:55.409 --> 00:51:59.590
different position. Don't tell yourself, don't do any early convergence.
942
00:51:59.789 --> 00:52:03.250
Put yourself in a box yourself. Children need that a lot. Actually,
943
00:52:03.289 --> 00:52:05.449
everybody needs that a lot. We're always putting ourselves in
944
00:52:05.489 --> 00:52:09.429
different boxes all the time, limiting our capacities to grow.
945
00:52:10.860 --> 00:52:13.840
So I think what you're saying here is if you
946
00:52:13.860 --> 00:52:17.780
want to be a good leader, parent, friend, partner, just
947
00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:21.480
be listening for when people in your orbit or even
948
00:52:21.539 --> 00:52:26.219
your own inner narrator might be offering up stories that
949
00:52:26.300 --> 00:52:29.420
seem fixed and conclusive and just get in the habit
950
00:52:29.460 --> 00:52:32.420
of challenging those stories. both your own stories and those
951
00:52:32.460 --> 00:52:33.500
of the people you know.
952
00:52:33.519 --> 00:52:35.559
That's very well said, yeah.
953
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.139
Let's close on another of your aphorisms. Don't just do
954
00:52:40.219 --> 00:52:42.219
hard things, design hard things.
955
00:52:44.179 --> 00:52:48.119
Yeah, I want people to feel that they have the power,
956
00:52:48.400 --> 00:52:51.449
not feel, but know that they have the power. Because
957
00:52:51.469 --> 00:52:53.550
what we do is we wait for life to throw
958
00:52:53.650 --> 00:52:56.269
us these challenges, to put us in these hard times.
959
00:52:56.750 --> 00:53:00.090
And till now, for the most part, our way of
960
00:53:00.170 --> 00:53:03.059
learning is some of the deepest learning happens is when
961
00:53:03.239 --> 00:53:07.139
life throws us these curveballs that take us through challenging times,
962
00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:10.800
hard times. And the logic in productive failure that I
963
00:53:10.840 --> 00:53:13.539
want people to think and understand and perhaps act upon
964
00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:16.050
is that we don't have to wait for these things.
965
00:53:17.230 --> 00:53:19.150
And these things happen and the stakes are high and
966
00:53:19.170 --> 00:53:22.030
it really hurts. But what if we could use them
967
00:53:22.329 --> 00:53:26.050
more powerfully by designing for them early on so that
968
00:53:26.150 --> 00:53:29.429
we are better prepared? For example, if I'm Body productive
969
00:53:29.469 --> 00:53:32.679
failure is a way of learning and growth. Then I'm
970
00:53:32.719 --> 00:53:34.860
not just learning the thing that I'm learning in a
971
00:53:34.900 --> 00:53:38.639
deep way, whether it's chess or math or communication skills
972
00:53:38.699 --> 00:53:43.199
or writing. I'm also learning how to deal and manage failure.
973
00:53:44.780 --> 00:53:47.860
So when there's failure that I didn't design for happens
974
00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:52.650
in my life, you develop a confidence over time that, yeah,
975
00:53:52.929 --> 00:53:54.610
I know this is going to suck. I'm going to
976
00:53:54.789 --> 00:53:57.960
be really, really hurt. But I have the capability, I
977
00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:01.139
have the tools that I've developed over time to be
978
00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:04.460
able to deal with even this failure that is not
979
00:54:04.519 --> 00:54:07.449
designed and life has thrown at me. And that's a
980
00:54:07.489 --> 00:54:10.030
very powerful feeling. And I have that right now that
981
00:54:10.409 --> 00:54:13.849
no matter what happens, I know I can deal with it,
982
00:54:15.090 --> 00:54:15.809
even though it will hurt.
983
00:54:16.329 --> 00:54:19.239
It's a training in grit and resilience. Exactly.
984
00:54:19.260 --> 00:54:21.869
Exactly. We say a lot of the people, resilience is
985
00:54:21.909 --> 00:54:23.670
a perfect word, right? And we say some people are
986
00:54:23.710 --> 00:54:26.510
just resilient because life has given them those tough cards.
987
00:54:27.090 --> 00:54:29.170
And it's true. Like in countries in the world where
988
00:54:29.210 --> 00:54:32.090
life is a little harsher, people are more resilient, no doubt.
989
00:54:33.250 --> 00:54:35.219
But is that the only way? I mean, must I
990
00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:38.619
wish really hard things from life on you? Is that
991
00:54:38.639 --> 00:54:42.900
the only way of building resilience? No. You can do
992
00:54:42.940 --> 00:54:45.460
it in a smaller, very safe ways over time as well.
993
00:54:46.119 --> 00:54:48.079
And that's what the logic of productive failure is.
994
00:54:49.340 --> 00:54:51.860
I have two questions I ask toward the end of
995
00:54:52.099 --> 00:54:54.920
an interview. The first is, is there something you were
996
00:54:54.960 --> 00:54:57.000
hoping to get to that we didn't get to? Is
997
00:54:57.019 --> 00:55:00.059
there any malpractice we've committed here by leaving something out?
998
00:55:00.860 --> 00:55:03.019
No, not really malpractice, but I think, I don't know
999
00:55:03.039 --> 00:55:05.000
to what extent your readers, and I'm a scientist, so
1000
00:55:05.039 --> 00:55:06.639
I'm biased, so you can just tell me, Manu, that's
1001
00:55:06.780 --> 00:55:10.090
not going to fly with my audience. But we didn't
1002
00:55:10.119 --> 00:55:13.570
really quite go into as to why it works. What
1003
00:55:13.590 --> 00:55:16.969
are the mechanisms? Why does failure, productive failure, work so powerfully?
1004
00:55:17.590 --> 00:55:19.130
So that's one thing we didn't go into, but I'm
1005
00:55:19.170 --> 00:55:20.030
happy to go into.
1006
00:55:20.650 --> 00:55:22.610
I would love to go into that, please. I want
1007
00:55:22.630 --> 00:55:22.989
to hear more.
1008
00:55:24.010 --> 00:55:27.090
All right. The reason why productive failure is so powerful
1009
00:55:27.769 --> 00:55:30.829
is what I call the four A umbrella mechanisms, the
1010
00:55:30.869 --> 00:55:34.300
four A's that really turn failure into something that is
1011
00:55:34.860 --> 00:55:39.320
productive and deep learning. The first A is activation. And
1012
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:42.420
this is the idea that if you're learning something new,
1013
00:55:43.440 --> 00:55:45.280
the only way for you to learn that thing is
1014
00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:49.309
to activate something your own resources, so that you can
1015
00:55:49.389 --> 00:55:53.349
process the new information. So you can read new things
1016
00:55:53.429 --> 00:55:57.769
because you have the resources that you've learned how to read,
1017
00:55:57.829 --> 00:56:00.989
and you can use those resources to read that new thing,
1018
00:56:01.210 --> 00:56:04.050
provided it's the same language. If it's a different language,
1019
00:56:04.150 --> 00:56:06.929
it's suddenly very different. So what failure does is it
1020
00:56:07.110 --> 00:56:12.670
activates relevant knowledge in you that you already have, And
1021
00:56:12.730 --> 00:56:16.250
that helps you process the new information better. If you
1022
00:56:16.289 --> 00:56:19.070
go directly to the new information, you don't have the
1023
00:56:19.190 --> 00:56:21.769
deliberate activation. You're doing two things at the same time.
1024
00:56:21.809 --> 00:56:23.690
You're listening, and then you're trying to make sense of.
1025
00:56:24.829 --> 00:56:25.199
What is it.
1026
00:56:25.449 --> 00:56:30.079
So failure activates very nicely your cognitive system. And it
1027
00:56:30.139 --> 00:56:33.280
also then shows you, it makes, and that's the second A,
1028
00:56:33.500 --> 00:56:36.940
awareness of a gap. It shows you, well, here's what
1029
00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.539
I can do. Here's the limits of my knowledge. And
1030
00:56:40.579 --> 00:56:42.909
then there's a gap. So there's something that I do
1031
00:56:42.949 --> 00:56:45.289
not know. It makes it very clear to you that
1032
00:56:45.369 --> 00:56:49.199
you do not know that. And you will say, well, yeah,
1033
00:56:49.380 --> 00:56:50.800
if I want to learn something new, I want to
1034
00:56:50.840 --> 00:56:53.420
watch a video on something. I also know that I
1035
00:56:53.460 --> 00:56:55.019
do not know that thing, and that's why I'm watching
1036
00:56:55.059 --> 00:56:58.219
the video. But this awareness of a gap is in
1037
00:56:58.260 --> 00:57:00.980
a very specific sense. When you've actually tried multiple ways,
1038
00:57:01.300 --> 00:57:03.880
you don't just have this general sense that I don't
1039
00:57:03.940 --> 00:57:06.340
know this concept or idea. You have knowledge in a
1040
00:57:06.400 --> 00:57:08.980
very specific sense that I tried all these different things
1041
00:57:09.039 --> 00:57:11.980
and it didn't work. There is this specific gap. It's
1042
00:57:12.079 --> 00:57:15.760
very precise. It's very punctuated. Okay, so there's an awareness
1043
00:57:15.800 --> 00:57:19.500
of gap. Psychologically, if you have activated and you're aware
1044
00:57:19.519 --> 00:57:23.179
that there is a gap, you have an affect. Your
1045
00:57:23.260 --> 00:57:27.360
interest in finding out what the correct way or correct
1046
00:57:27.380 --> 00:57:32.090
knowledge is actually spikes. Your curiosity spikes. Your engagement with
1047
00:57:32.110 --> 00:57:36.369
the material spikes. Your motivation to understand that thing, why
1048
00:57:36.389 --> 00:57:39.190
it is the way it is, actually also spikes. And
1049
00:57:39.210 --> 00:57:41.699
at the same time, You're dealing with frustration and a
1050
00:57:42.860 --> 00:57:44.699
bit of stress. And all of these are positive things
1051
00:57:44.760 --> 00:57:47.579
because as I said earlier in the talk, when we
1052
00:57:47.679 --> 00:57:50.699
talked about how the limbic system activates and the tensional
1053
00:57:50.739 --> 00:57:53.090
processes come into the picture and so on and so forth.
1054
00:57:53.389 --> 00:57:57.449
The affect is this complex, positive and negative things happen
1055
00:57:58.010 --> 00:58:02.070
to your body, to yourself, that prepare you to then
1056
00:58:02.170 --> 00:58:05.369
receive or process the correct information. And that's the fourth one,
1057
00:58:05.409 --> 00:58:09.050
the assembly. The assembly is key because if you don't
1058
00:58:09.090 --> 00:58:13.170
have assembly, And by assembly, I mean when correct knowledge
1059
00:58:13.369 --> 00:58:17.769
or skill or ideas are incorporated into your knowledge structure.
1060
00:58:18.369 --> 00:58:20.449
So you tried your ways. It didn't work. You know
1061
00:58:20.489 --> 00:58:23.789
that there's a gap. You have the positive. You have
1062
00:58:23.809 --> 00:58:27.050
the correct affective state that has primed you for learning.
1063
00:58:27.989 --> 00:58:30.750
When the expert knowledge comes in, you can assemble it
1064
00:58:30.769 --> 00:58:36.829
a lot better. So these four sort of mechanisms, activation, awareness, affect,
1065
00:58:36.989 --> 00:58:41.030
and assembly come together to turn failure into something that
1066
00:58:41.070 --> 00:58:45.340
is productive. If there is no assembly, it can go sideways.
1067
00:58:45.679 --> 00:58:49.619
It's just failure. So again, I said expert knowledge is key.
1068
00:58:49.960 --> 00:58:53.199
Listening to that example or expert way of doing things
1069
00:58:53.239 --> 00:58:56.039
is key. But first, can you activate? Can you become
1070
00:58:56.099 --> 00:58:58.739
aware that in a very specific way that there is
1071
00:58:58.780 --> 00:59:01.769
a gap? And can you build the affective state that
1072
00:59:01.789 --> 00:59:05.250
is primes you to encode deeply? That's when you bring
1073
00:59:05.269 --> 00:59:07.420
the expert in and assemble it.
1074
00:59:07.949 --> 00:59:09.969
So it really sounds like we're working with the brain
1075
00:59:10.219 --> 00:59:15.059
natural reward systems to set us up for success.
1076
00:59:16.219 --> 00:59:16.400
Yeah.
1077
00:59:16.420 --> 00:59:16.960
Through failure.
1078
00:59:16.980 --> 00:59:20.210
Supercharging them, knowing exactly you're hacking it, right? Yeah. And
1079
00:59:20.230 --> 00:59:23.429
that's the paradox. The ways that you optimize those systems
1080
00:59:23.530 --> 00:59:25.670
are through failure in a safe way.
1081
00:59:26.570 --> 00:59:29.869
Anything else that we should have talked about that we haven't?
1082
00:59:30.730 --> 00:59:31.769
Yeah, that's about everything. Yeah.
1083
00:59:32.489 --> 00:59:34.869
So that leads me to my final question, which is,
1084
00:59:35.050 --> 00:59:36.670
can you just remind everybody of the name of your
1085
00:59:36.690 --> 00:59:40.929
book and also talk about any other resources you've put
1086
00:59:41.010 --> 00:59:44.070
out into the world digitally or otherwise that we should access?
1087
00:59:44.090 --> 00:59:47.420
All right. So my book is called Productive Failure. It's
1088
00:59:47.480 --> 00:59:51.039
available widely wherever booksellers are. And of course, people are
1089
00:59:51.059 --> 00:59:57.000
free to Google me, my website, manukapur.com or the book's website, productivefailure.com.
1090
00:59:57.610 --> 01:00:00.289
If you're interested in ideas through a TED Talks, I
1091
01:00:00.309 --> 01:00:02.800
have a couple of TED Talks as well. If you
1092
01:00:02.820 --> 01:00:05.139
go to Google Productive Failure TED Talk, you would get
1093
01:00:06.159 --> 01:00:08.519
one of my seminal TED Talks. That actually is the
1094
01:00:08.579 --> 01:00:10.800
basis for the book. So if you want to get
1095
01:00:10.820 --> 01:00:14.230
a brief insight into the book within 15 to 18 minutes,
1096
01:00:14.610 --> 01:00:16.309
that's where you can go and watch. And if you're
1097
01:00:16.329 --> 01:00:18.949
interested in the science behind it, go to my website
1098
01:00:18.989 --> 01:00:20.750
and all my papers and talks are there as well.
1099
01:00:21.449 --> 01:00:24.210
We'll drop some links in the show notes. Dear listener,
1100
01:00:24.389 --> 01:00:26.889
in the meantime, Manu Kapoor, thank you very much for
1101
01:00:26.949 --> 01:00:27.300
coming on.
1102
01:00:28.320 --> 01:00:30.159
Thank you, Dan. It was a pleasure. Enjoyed.
1103
01:00:35.219 --> 01:00:38.019
Thanks again to Manu Kapoor. Awesome to talk to him.
1104
01:00:38.039 --> 01:00:41.449
Don't forget, we've got a guided meditation that is designed
1105
01:00:41.469 --> 01:00:44.530
to help you operationalize in your mind and in your
1106
01:00:44.570 --> 01:00:47.250
life what we learned on the show today. It comes
1107
01:00:47.289 --> 01:00:50.570
from our teacher of the month, Kyra Juulingo, and it's
1108
01:00:50.590 --> 01:00:53.559
all about how to handle discomfort, Discomfort is obviously a
1109
01:00:53.800 --> 01:00:56.699
huge and non-negotiable part of failure. So if you want
1110
01:00:56.719 --> 01:00:59.860
to get better at failing or failing productively, you've got
1111
01:00:59.880 --> 01:01:01.579
to learn how to handle your discomfort. She's going to
1112
01:01:01.619 --> 01:01:04.760
walk you through that. Kyra Jewell is designing meditations for
1113
01:01:04.889 --> 01:01:07.730
all of our Monday, Wednesday episodes this month. We're now
1114
01:01:07.789 --> 01:01:09.789
really doing this on the regular. If you want those
1115
01:01:09.849 --> 01:01:13.969
guided meditations, head on over to danharris.com where you can
1116
01:01:14.070 --> 01:01:16.469
sign up. And if you sign up, you also get
1117
01:01:16.530 --> 01:01:19.900
live guided meditations and question and answer sessions online. With me,
1118
01:01:19.960 --> 01:01:22.420
we've got one coming up Thursday, August 14th at 4
1119
01:01:22.420 --> 01:01:26.199
o'clock Eastern. Finally, thank you very much to everybody who
1120
01:01:26.239 --> 01:01:28.199
worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are
1121
01:01:28.239 --> 01:01:32.190
Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and
1122
01:01:32.230 --> 01:01:34.570
engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People.
1123
01:01:34.969 --> 01:01:38.090
Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our
1124
01:01:38.150 --> 01:01:41.809
senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick
1125
01:01:41.869 --> 01:01:43.909
Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our themes.