Two Ingredients, One Messy Lesson
Failure #60 - Everyone edits out the struggle... which is exactly why everyone else's life looks easier than yours.
Learning to Fail
Strategies for unlearning all the terrible lessons school taught you about failure, courtesy of that Duke professor who keeps popping up on your other social media feeds, too.
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Latest episodes
The Fixable Failure That Happens Before We Even Start
Failure #59 - Why we're great at predicting the big stuff, terrible at the small stuff, and miserable as a result.
The Failures You’ll Never Fix
Failure #58 - Humans are terrible at fixing their failures, but they're remarkably good at something else.
Fail Watching
Failure #57 - The thing you’re looking for isn’t always in the direction you’re staring.
The First Inning
Failure #56 - The more you know, the more frustrated you'll get with people who don't know.
The Problem With Putting Out Fires
Failure #55 - Helping the people we love avoid bad things isn't always the best way to protect them.
Living the Middle of the Story
Failure #54 - It's easy to simplify the past and a lot harder to contextualize the present.
Are We Contractually Obligated to Fail?
Failure #53 - Why the best contracts are designed to embrace failure.
When Failure Gets Bureaucratic
Failure #52 - Some failures are just a byproduct of living inside complex systems.
The Eddies of the World
Failure #51 - Sometimes the best help you can get is a friendly smile.
The Danger Hidden Inside Lazy Clichés
Failure #50 - The consequences of letting simple thinking do too much of the work.
Have Grades Finally Been Exposed For What They Really Are?
Failure #49 - Maybe the grades you were taught to fear aren't as terrifying as we all thought.
What the Comment Section Gets Wrong
Failure #48 - Understanding the very confident opinions that seem to be everywhere.
The Danger of Knowing Just Enough
Failure #47 - Jumping to conclusions is easy, but is it smart?
The Only Question That Actually Matters
Failure #46 - Getting to the "so what?" of everything.
When the System Isn’t Properly Aligned
Failure #45 - A reminder that no system can ever perfectly fit the enormous diversity of people in this world
The Fork in the Road
Last week at Duke, the school hosted an event called “Blue Devil Days.” It’s when the university invites all the admitted high schoolers to campus while they’re figuring out which college to attend.
The Context You Can’t See
In general, I try to avoid having any opinions about my students’ love lives.
The Hardest Part of Going to the Moon
As I write this, NASA’s Artemis II mission is finishing its journey around the moon.
When Success Looks Like Failure
Last week, one of my students came up to my desk before class looking uncomfortable.