WEBVTT - How to Be a Good Loser 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.200 From executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.880 succession planning. Corn Fairy can help you realize the full 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.920 potential of your people so you can take your business 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.560 where it wants to go up. Learn more at corn 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.480 Ferry dot com slash up. For the last decade or so, 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.080 failing has been cool. We've heard it out of Silicon Valley. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:26.040 Facebook's motto was moved fast, break things. But recently from 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.520 the election, we've been reminded of the real consequences of 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.160 failure and when failure doesn't feel so good. This week 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:48.199 on game Plan, we're talking about losing. I'm Rebecca Greenfield, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.120 a reporter at Bloomberger. I cover the workplace, and I 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.320 am Sam Grobart, a writer at Bloomberg business Week magazine. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.280 So for anyone who's been following Silicon Valley or I 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.720 used to cover technology a lot more closely, and I 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.440 think you did. To Sam, we heard so much talk 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.960 about the benefits of failure. Oh, you have to fail, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.800 You're not a real person if you haven't failed, was 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.520 the sort of mantra out of Silicon Valley. It was 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.640 a place where failure is embraced, It's lauded. It makes 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.120 you into a smarter, better entrepreneur, better person. Yeah, and 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.480 it was on a small scale, so when you're building 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.440 your products, move fast, big things. As I mentioned before, 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.920 that refers to coding and building things. But then on 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.880 a larger scale, as a startup founder, you're supposed to 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.520 have a failing company. Then that's because most startups do 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:38.360 fail absolutely. What is it something like some overwhelming percentage, 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.880 And so it becomes sort of a mark of experience 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.160 that you've failed. If you haven't failed, I think people 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.479 may look a bit askance at you because you haven't 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.120 been truly tested by failure. But of course there is 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.240 something to all this talk of losing and failure when 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.360 it pertains to Silicon Valley, which is that they can 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.000 afford to fail. Yeah. So there was a great up 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.680 ed by Kate Loss in The New York Times about 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.520 people who have the privilege to fail, where she points 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.240 the example of Bradford shell Hammer who founded fab dot com, 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.080 which had a spectacular failure. They got a ton of 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.840 funding and you know, it was a big failure. He 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.959 lost a ton of people, lost their jobs, they lost 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.720 a ton of money. And then Bradford went to start 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.400 another company and he got funding. Right, So failure but 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.760 without real consequence, at least not for the founder. All 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.040 the people who lost their jobs might feel a little differently. 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.000 I'm sure would take issue with that. But that's the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.760 problem with the Silicon Valley philosophy of failure. It's not 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.640 actual failure, it's academic failure. Right. And she brings up 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.160 the point that Silicon Valley and its investors pick the 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.480 people it allows to even fail, that people of color 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.280 and women don't even get funding. They fail way earlier on, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.440 and that's not seen really as a mark of success. 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.480 That's seen as your idea isn't even good enough to 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.440 get some funding exactly. So what we want to talk 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.800 about today, I think, is more about what it means 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.320 to lose and what can we take from it. What 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:58.920 I mean, you have to be able to take something 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.480 from it, otherwise you'll just be caught in some terrible 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.840 cycle of disappointment and doubt. Yeah. I feel that way 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.680 a little bit these days. I felt that way my 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.720 entire life. Come on, well, you and I were trying 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.880 to rack our brains for times we'd failed. Not that 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.120 we haven't failed, no, but we have. I don't think 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.000 anything really haunts us, right. I think starting a company 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.160 and losing all the money and losing people's jobs is 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.200 something that will be a mark on your your life 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.880 story for a while, more than yes, not writing a 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.960 good story in our case, or doing poorly on a presentation, 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:39.760 or losing a big sale, or exactly micro failures. And 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.840 the truth is, you know, failure is a function of risk. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.880 And I think we were talking a little bit about 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.320 this earlier. I think we're both comparatively risk averse, yes, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:51.600 which I think people would say, you need to risk 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.080 things to do great things. But this notion of risk, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.840 if you want to now turn it towards recent current 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.120 events in the form of the presidential election, and you 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.760 were saying earlier that to some degree, this notion of 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.960 the election of Donald Trump is that risk taking impulse 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.560 among the American people. Let's try this. We've never done 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.560 this before, yea, what wasn't working before, So we need 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.560 to try something new, and even if it breaks everything 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.440 that came before, it that inherently something good will come 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.120 out of that. Yes, although millions upon millions of voters 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.480 might disagree with that, right, and they're dealing with their 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.599 own feelings of failure. And losing themselves too, and trying 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.400 to figure out how to deal with that in a 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.160 way that is hopefully as productive as possible. Well, and 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.839 right now you're seeing sort of two different expressions of 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.520 that dealing with failure, aren't you, Because you have some 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.719 people who are saying, if you allow yourself with the 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.800 Democratic Party, let's say, people saying, Okay, we've clearly made 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.320 some serious mistakes here. We weren't seeing things that we 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.520 should have been seeing. How should we look for this 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.600 in the future, what kinds of candidates are going to 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.359 appeal to the right group of people? And then you 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.560 have the other group, which right now is trying to 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.120 initiate recounts of votes. Now that's not to say that 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.640 is in a valid pursuit, but you could make the 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.120 argument that one group is sort of going, okay, like 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:09.800 what should I learn from this, and the other one's 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.960 going like, no, no, you know, like, it wasn't a mistake. 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.520 We got all the votes, We got more votes, go 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.359 back and count them again. Yeah, one group is admitting 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.080 failure and loss and trying to deal with it, and 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.480 the other hasn't quite gotten there, and barring a revelation 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.000 about vote talies in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. They're going 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.080 to have to come around to that same point of 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.080 view that already some people are grappling with, right, And 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:35.880 then it's like, okay, what do you do? How do 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:37.200 you deal with it? And I think for a lot 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.159 of us, like you and I, you don't deal with 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.400 failure in such a large scale generally, right, So we 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.520 don't really know how to deal with it. But fortunately 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.760 our guest does and we have with us, Sam Wineman. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.799 He has a book coming out December twenty. It's called 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.640 When It Losing, How our biggest setbacks lead to our 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.279 greatest gains? And he's going to tell us how to 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:05.360 lose better. Thanks for coming and talking to us, sam 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.680 My Pleasures, thanks for having me. So I guess we 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.719 can start with a simple question, how can our biggest 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.560 setbacks lead to our greatest gains? The simplest way is 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.880 that losing is a window into our weaknesses and it 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.040 forces us to address whatever area is improvement we need. 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.279 Whereas when we win, we sort of gloss over the 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.640 things that we need to work on, but losing sort 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.400 of brings that stuff front and center. So the first 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.440 thing it does is it. I call it the ultimate 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.200 truth serum, which is that it makes you deal head 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.839 on with flaws, weaknesses, you know, various areas of improvement, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.200 and more times than not, it's the one thing you're 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.600 gonna have to correct to win next time. Sam, quick 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.560 question here, what if you say, don't have any flaws 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.560 or then I had the same questions? Right, Yes, Well 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.360 you're you're very fortunate and this might not be the 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.960 book for you. Well, I wish you all the very best. Um, 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:59.640 I do want to ask you a question. In your book, 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.279 you talk a little bit about the sort of two 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.320 minds that that encounter failure and the different reactions they have. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.120 Can you tell us a little bit about that. Well, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.480 there's there's a famous sort of distinction that was made 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.640 not by me, but by Stanford psychology professor named Carol Dweck, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.120 and she calls it growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. A 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.760 growth mindset is someone who accepts failures and challenges and 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.760 wants to tackle and wants to improve, realizes that everything 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.280 is a bit of a process and that there's grounds 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.920 to be made over the course of whatever you're doing. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.200 The fixed mindset is of the belief that you have acceptabilities. 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.200 This is who you are. You're born with them more 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.120 or less, and when you fail or you lose, it 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.720 is a sort of statement about who you are. And 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.880 so the healthier way is to have a growth mindset, 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.840 and everything you do, whether it's sports or business or relationships, 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.320 is to kind of have this belief that anything we 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.240 endeavor to do is part of a process, and when 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.040 there are setbacks of some sort, you embrace the challenges 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.240 that are there and hopefully build upon it. The fixed 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.200 one sounds a little bit like Calvinists, like you were 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.280 born this way and this has happened because you're wicked now. Confession, 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.000 h that was a really bad religion joke by all 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.120 of us. Um So on reading that, I related definitely 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.040 to the fixed mindset, which I guess is bad. But 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.680 then thinking back, I think immediately most of us must 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.400 have that fixed mindset where you fail at something, and immediately, 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:23.080 of course they're going to take it as some sort 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:24.880 of character flaw. Of course, I mean, at first of all, 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:26.680 I think it's important to note that no one is 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.080 all one thing or you know, all the other, and 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.400 we all have fixed mindset tendencies within and you know, 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.640 some days we're fighting it more than others, and I'm 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.000 definitely an example of that. So when you and anything 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:39.720 you do, when you lose, if I'm you know, a 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:41.520 lot of this has to do with sports, and I 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.680 lose an a tennis match, my inclination say I suck 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.360 on the worst, right. So it's just part of our 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.480 nature to think of it as some sort of commentary 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:52.240 on our set of abilities. And so when you do 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.000 take a step back, that's when you take a larger 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:55.520 look and say, well, actually, no, I can you know, 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.160 I can get better, I can build upon this, and 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.400 you're able to certainly see that there are ways to 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.200 improve in whatever you're doing. You are an editor at 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.280 Golf Digest, you have been a sports reporter. It would 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.840 seem that you know professional athletes who are playing at 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.319 the highest level of their games still encounter a significant 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.920 amount of failure. I mean, nobody goes effectively, you know, 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.280 with a perfect season. I mean teams might, but even 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.480 individuals screw up here and there. Do you find in 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.560 your experience that athletes have sort of a better way 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.720 of handling the inevitable failure game to game that's going 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.640 to happen. Yes and no, which is I realized an 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.400 evasive answer. First of all, I think that one of 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.240 the points I make in the book is that sports, 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.040 as small a microcosm as it is, is a great 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.880 training ground for dealing with failure because everyone deals with 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.280 it in an athletic context from a young age. You're 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.000 going to have failures, are losing, and you have to 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:46.840 learn how to deal with it and address whatever is 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.760 go on. So and that at that standpoint, every athlete 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.240 has confronted it. But when you talk about the highest 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.840 level of sports, professional athletes, these are guys who are 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.480 often told how great they are, they're the best, and 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.760 have huge egos, and with ego comes the complications of 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.240 not wanting to have anything that counters their ego. So 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.800 when you're you know, ex. Professional basketball player, and you're 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.600 told how wonderful you are and you have an off night, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.480 there can be a temptation to blame that or look 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.800 elsewhere beyond within and looking at their mistakes. So there 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.520 are some there are a lot of fixed mindset tendencies 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.920 within professional athletes. So your book is a lot about sports, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.480 and you said you started writing it because of a 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.720 sports incident with your son. But we are show about 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.880 our lives at work. So I have to ask, how 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.120 do you think that this plays out in the day 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.400 to day lives of people at work or in business. 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.280 I think it plays at a hundred different ways. I 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.040 think one of the big things is that when we're 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.880 at work, of course they're we're going to have various setbacks. 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:46.760 So you people lose their jobs, or people you lose 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.720 out an account, or you have some sort of you know, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.600 you don't get the promotion you wanted. Again, there's this 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.280 whole tendency to first look at as a commentary on you, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.480 on your worth, and in some cases it is sometimes 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.959 you need to have that moment of truth where he says, 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.560 I didn't get the job because I didn't have skills X, Y, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.480 and Z, and I need to develop those skills, and 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.160 I wasn't the right guy. Or I botched the presentation 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.120 at work, and I did because I wasn't prepared, And 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.960 those are all sort of failures that you can learn from. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.560 I do think the other part I talked about is 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.360 it sometimes there are failures and there are losses, and 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.560 without getting too much on the weeds on this, sometimes 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.560 the losses outside your control. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes the 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.440 company downsizes and they eliminate jobs, and people who are 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.680 perfectly good at their jobs have these quote unquote setbacks. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:32.880 There's the moment you have to have where you realize 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.480 was it me or was it something else? And sort 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.000 of the starting point with all of this is this 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:39.120 sort of moment of honesty, which is what was it? 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:40.560 Was it me? And if it was me, what did 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.960 I do? What can I do better? How can I 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.120 learn from this and move on? But another way to 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:46.920 kind of soften the blow is maybe it wasn't me. 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.240 Maybe it was something that it was just outside of 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.120 my control, And there is some solace to be taken 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.760 in that as well. You've already identified a few of these, 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.200 but I was wondering if you could tell us, do 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:00.720 you have a playbook of sorts when encountering a failure 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.920 of your own that you sort of remember to think 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.400 about it this way, take these steps, something practical that 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.880 people can be adopt ive. Been forced to sort of 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.040 think about that recently. Yeah, No, so I do think 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.080 that sort of inventory. I hate to use all these 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.040 sort of self help buzz words, but there is a 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:18.960 little bit of a sort of inventory of what happened 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.160 and being honest with yourself, wasn't me with something I did? 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:23.800 How did this all play out? What were you get 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:25.760 all the facts on the table? Is someone said to me. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.120 So that's the first part. And then you kind of 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.959 do this analysis of what happened and you sift through 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.600 the things that are we're not your fault and that 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.880 you can sort of insulate yourself from and say that 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.160 was just something outside my control. But then there's all 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.880 these areas that I can work on. And I think 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.800 that the next part is a looking at what you 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:45.760 can improve upon, where our skills that you needed to 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.360 be developed, or things that you needed to prepare better 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.880 or whatnot. And then there's also just sort of fortifying 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.920 yourself for the next endeavor that you're going into and 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.560 using that into whatever it is. And also I think 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.200 another part of this is when you do that at 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.000 and you've had a failure, a loss of some sort, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.680 is taking some strength from that, which is, you know, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.480 I had this thing happened to me, whatever it was, 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.840 you know, I allowed myself to be bummed out about it, 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.120 but you know from that came small victories from it 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:15.560 that I can point to, whatever they are I mean 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.640 I'm talking real generalities here, but um, you know, there's 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.840 probably some things that you did go well, and then 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:22.880 I think that's important identify those things as well so 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.160 you can build on those. Up happens when the power 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.160 and potential of every employee and leader in your workforce 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.120 is released, and corn Ferry can get you there by 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.400 aligning your people to your strategy, attracting, developing, engaging, and 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.880 rewarding them to reach new heights. With corn Ferry, you 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.920 get a partner who truly understands people, leadership and the 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.480 new landscape of work, a partner who knows how to 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.640 take your business up. Learn more at corn Ferry dot 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.920 com slash up. You alluded to something recently that happened 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.160 that you had to deal with a loss. We're talking 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.240 about November eight. Well, I thought you said that you've 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.160 had to deal with that recently, So I do think 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.559 a good example is how people look at the election. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.240 You know, regardless of your politics, but certainly for the 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.440 people who ended up on the side where the outcome 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.640 did not go, they wanted it to go. Even though 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.760 only one person ran for president loss, there's a lot 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.400 of people who had a lot of invest a lot 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.360 invested in that election, and it was a loss for them, 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:24.200 man exactly. And so but there's this sort of feeling 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.200 of devastation and and uh someone hopelessness. And in my 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.040 own small way, I've tried to look at it, what 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:32.640 did I miss about this? You know, what did I 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.560 what did I not see that other people see? I 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.920 have no intention of running for political office, but at 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.280 least in helping me myself cope with the new dynamic 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.160 of this country is trying to understand what I miss 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.680 what people are saying that I don't see how I 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.560 can possibly learn from it and grow from it. And 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.880 then I think that's like on my small personal level, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.160 but if you look at the Democratic Party, you know 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.560 they're they're gonna have it to do a huge sort 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.400 of inventory. I talked about about what they missed, what 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.640 they're doing wrong, where they've missed the mark, and how 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.160 they can sort of take this and and build on it. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.800 That process that you describe, and particularly on the personal level, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.480 you've already identified the sort of the ego of the 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.600 professional athlete. Let's say, are some professional athletes who immediately 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.600 might blame others, come up with excuses, other reasons on 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:19.960 the other side of that spectrum is perhaps the kind 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.600 of person who almost unduly puts blame on themselves, and 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.720 so you have to make sure you're sort of in 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.640 between those two. And you know, I've definitely been in 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.080 this situation and people have said to me, look at 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.160 the facts, you know, did you do that? And I'll 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.320 be like, no, I didn't have anything to do with that. 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.280 Then that wasn't you. You shouldn't feel badly about that 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.680 part of it, you know, let that go. And getting 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:45.920 back for a minute, I know this is a little 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.680 bit circular, but back to the election. We now have 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:54.520 a president elect for whom losing, oh what could be worse? 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.360 But he never has lost in his own mind, and 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.640 if he's lost, it's not his fault. I mean, you know, 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.800 not to get into, but there's definitely this talk about ego. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.920 You know, when people people of great ego, when they lose, 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.440 are unwilling to look at their own role in that 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.000 loss um And the opposite of that is people of 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.920 humility will identify their role in any of these things. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.680 And so I'm a big believer again politics aside that 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.640 a huge way to cope with losing is this humility 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.360 of kind of identifying what you can do, what you 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.280 could have done better, but also not just piling on 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.600 yourself for the sake of just beating yourself up. I mean, 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.040 at some point you do have to make that distinction 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:37.760 of and it wasn't me. Actually, that was something that 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:39.680 was outside my control, and I did the best I 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.400 could for X, Y, and Z. So it's a very 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.440 tricky balance, and I hopefully articulated uh and sort of 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.720 how to make the distinction in the book in terms 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.600 of being honest with yourself and I identifying the areas 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.920 that where it is you and where it's not you, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.680 and hopefully um building off of both again to be 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:57.360 the one to say we have to bring it back 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.960 to work. You also have a chapter on Silicon Valot 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.000 and their obsession with failure. Well, they love losing over 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.520 Oh you lose all the way to the bank, and 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.440 you seem to be on the side of that. Well, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.280 I think it's been proven that a lot of the 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.800 great successes in Silicon Valley and just innovation in general 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.199 are the byproduct of some sort of failure. I mean, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.200 Twitter started as another company that sort of didn't go anywhere, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.399 and then uh, they iterated, and they came up with 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.439 this other idea that happened to be Now there are 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.239 another company that might but it's just part. It's very 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.199 much ingrained in the culture there that you iterate and 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.119 you constantly are throwing things against the wall, and you 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.159 accept the idea that some are not going to a 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.760 lot are not gonna work. There's the you've heard the 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.320 buzzword pivot, you know, being able to pivot is a 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.399 huge part of Silicon Valley, which is, um, you have 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:50.080 an idea and it doesn't work and doesn't make a 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:51.760 lot of sense, but that one percent is something that 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.159 maybe we can work with, So let's see what we 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.120 can do with that. And it's a very nimble culture 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.400 out there, and it's all based on the idea that 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:00.320 a lot of the things you're gonna do are not 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.480 gonna work, and there's no shame in that. Bringing it 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.359 back to sports, and I'm really not a sports person, 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.600 but I often do think about the idea that an 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.360 amazing hitter in baseball is still going to strike two 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:16.000 out of three times or more. And that's significant. So 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.960 there's a lot more losing there than winning. But the 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:20.760 right winds can make a big thing. I mean, that's 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.120 a sort of analogy I make in that chapter, which 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.040 is this whole idea of sort of a micro failure, 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.479 which is that you know everyone's gonna have micro failures. 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:29.760 But in baseball, like you said, I mean, the best 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.159 baseball hitters are unsuccessful two thirds of the time. And 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.480 so rather than look at those occasions as you know, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.800 a commentary on how inept they are, they look at 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:42.440 it that's just kind of part of the deal. And 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.119 it's gonna obviously, you know, your your value has proven 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.800 over a much wider sample size than you know that 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:52.840 one at bad. And so it's the same thing with 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.520 ideas in the in the tech world, which is you're 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:57.920 going to try a lot of things and most of 0:18:57.960 --> 0:18:59.600 them are not gonna work, but there's gonna be something 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.320 that you're gonn to be able to build on from there. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.320 I often have this conversation with my brother and I 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.199 would like to get your guys two cents on it. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.000 I think a similar thing should be applied to people 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:14.679 in creative fields, where you should not judge someone based 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.239 on every single creative thing that they do, but like 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.199