The Art of Failure: The Unexpected Path to Success (Audio)

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Failure is woven into success — the question is how to fail.

  Performance psychologist Gio Valiante says success and failure aren't opposites. Failure is woven into the fabric of success, so the useful question is how to fail in ways that build skill and belief. It's like teaching a child to fall on skis so they don't get hurt. To predict how someone will react to failure, don't look at the reaction. Go back to the beginning and ask why they do what they do.

• 02

  Mastery orientation versus ego orientation.

  Research on achievement goals sorts people into two buckets. Mastery-oriented people are curious and intrinsically motivated; they love the problem and the practice. Ego-oriented people want to beat others, prove something or manage their image. He says children love learning until about third grade — when grades arrive. When mastery-oriented people fail, they get curious, like Edison calling the light bulb 'an invention that simply required a thousand steps.' When ego-oriented people fail, they feel embarrassed.

• 03

  Embarrassment is the toxic emotion that makes people underperform.

  Valiante ranks humiliation as one of the most painful human experiences, second only to the grief of losing a child. Embarrassment floods the body with cortisol and adrenaline and distorts perception, so you see threat instead of opportunity and stop taking risks. Twenty years later you wonder where the time went, and so does everyone who thought you could have been better. His first agreement with every client: take embarrassment out of the equation, because the brain will anticipate it and put you in a 'psychological straitjacket.'

• 04

  Incentives can kill the love of the game.

  He cites Born to Run's argument that marathon times got slower once Nike contracts arrived and runners ran for the reward. He also tells a parable. An old man whose garden kept getting trampled by neighbourhood football players paid the kids $5 a week to play, then stopped paying — and the games ended. Praise, approval and money are fine, he says, but the order matters: love of the craft first, then enjoy what comes with it.

• 05

  Choose your mirrors and pre-decide your reactions.

  To move a client from ego to mastery, Valiante starts with why, then picks three or four people the client will actually listen to — people who love them, observe accurately and tell the truth. Most of us over-index on what an imagined 'they' think, when people form opinions carelessly. Then they rehearse reactions to failure on a ladder of five: embarrassment, anger, acceptance, humour, and ultimately curiosity. Accepting a miss and laughing at it avoids the toxic chemistry entirely. He calls sense of humour one of the greatest tells of psychological health.

• 06

  When effort is commoditised, judgment is the edge.

  At the far end of the curve, everyone works hard and everyone is persistent. The advantage becomes knowing when to quit a bad bet, when to rest, and when to fold. At the top of Bloom's taxonomy of thinking — above knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis and synthesis — he puts judgment. After back-to-back visits with Bills coach Sean McDermott, golfer Jordan Spieth and hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen, he realised they were all having the same conversation. That conversation is humility, endless testing, work ethic and flow.

• 07

  The best combine humility with conviction.

  Valiante says almost every success book is already in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Top performers believe in their path but readily admit they don't know, so they keep testing and risking. Tiger Woods rebuilt what experts called the greatest swing in history, in a spirit of kaizen — continual improvement. Peter Buck of R.E.M. recorded an album on mandolin rather than repeat the formula. The ability to 'play the shot that you see' means trusting your own vision. And when you're afraid, stare at it: go eyeball to eyeball with the fear rather than letting life bully you.

• 08

  Press an advantage only after checking your why.

  Pressing at the wrong time usually comes from impatience or frustration. An investor with a 10% mandate who is up 5% in a quiet market forces a low-probability trade and loses their job. Desire powers innovation, as in Adam Smith or Ayn Rand. Left unchecked, he says, it drives most cognitive errors. He points to Tiger Woods: the desire behind his greatness also fuelled the decisions that blew up his marriage and the injuries from refusing to stop. Map your edge, decide what losses you'll tolerate, and notice if a loss would rattle your future decisions — 'that's your tell.'