I find podcasts too slow. Typically, I've read transcripts as faster. I haven't found the nuance of listening has added significantly. You do lose tone and inflection but not the core messages. However podcast are so popular - and not looking to slow down any time soon - and many fail to provide transcripts. Thus I've started to dabble in them. The upside to an atypical late night sleeper child is using the enforced time to try new experiences.
I've listened to a few of Elizabeth Day's podcast, How To Fail.
This paper suggests (H/T Tyler Cowen, see end) that we don't share our failures. It appears that people fail to realise that there is enormously valuable information in failures. Arguably more than in successes. Despite efforts at school to teach FAIL = First Attempt in Learning.
Elizabeth Day has hit upon a *winning* podcast formula. She has a rather amazing host of guests coming on and discussing their failures. Or rather, of course, discussing their learnings that "failure" has revealed.
One episode already has been echoing with me all week. Malcolm Gladwell spoke of three learnings amongst other rather thoughtful matters.
Gladwell was a high performance runner aged 16. But, at that age, he already knew - or thought he knew - he wouldn't go on to be an ultra elite runner. So, he gave up running. Thinking that the point of running and races was to win and be the best. Decades later, Gladwell started running again. He found he really enjoyed running. He considered not learning that earlier as a failure. The goal of running was not winning and Gladwell missed out on an activity that would have given him much pleasure over the decades.
Gladwell is a mediocre cook. When people come to his house to eat, they don't have to worry about the food. The food will never be elite. They only have to worry about enjoying themselves.
The pressure of not having to win a race revealed a deeper truth about the activity.
Gladwell once made a major error in misquoting a controversial intellectual. This was all about race, IQ and the bell curve. The error revealed the nature of his own biases. These type of biases his work was arguing against.
Gladwell discovered a friend of his was alcoholic. But, he hasn't stood by her in a way he would have wanted. It's complex but he considers this a failure of his friendship. The observation sparked a conversation on the nature of friendships through time.
There's a bunch of nuance and other ideas you gain from this podcast. It's a recommend from me.
Ofc, easier said then done - learning from mistakes...
Study on failure to share failures…”Failure often contains useful information, yet across five studies involving 11 separate samples (N = 1238), people were reluctant to share this information with others. First, using a novel experimental paradigm, we found that participants consistently undershared failure—relative to success and a no-feedback experience—even though failure contained objectively more information than these comparison experiences. Second, this reluctance to share failure generalized to professional experiences. Teachers in the field were less likely to share information gleaned from failure than information gleaned from success, and employees were less likely to share lessons gleaned from failed versus successful attempts to concentrate at work. Why are people reluctant to share failure? Across experimental and professional failures, people did not realize that failure contained useful information. The current investigation illuminates an erroneous belief and the asymmetrical world of information it produces: one where failures are common in private, but hidden in public….”
Links to Elizabeth Day’s podcast How to Fail.
