Post: #1

Interesting Ted Talk and transcript by Tim Ferris.

Applying principles of stoicism, he has found that defining his fears, including (1) what is the worst that can happen, (2) what could happen if he instead simply makes an attempt and gets partial success,, and (3)the cost of inaction, has benefitted him more than setting goals.

Under the first point, he first lists 10-20 things that might happen if he fails, or what failure would look like; he then contemplates ways to prevent these; and finally he considers how he might repair a failure - how could you fix it if it happened; is there someone you could ask for help from? has anyone ever figured this out before?

The last point - in action - hits a human blindspot and makes you weigh the hidden costs of inaction in your calculus.

While not a panacea, because some risks are real and unfixable, he believes a lot of fears are more imagined than real.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_wh...transcript

Post: #2

(06-25-2017 09:15 AM)Hypno Wrote:  Interesting Ted Talk and transcript by Tim Ferris.

...
Under the first point, he first lists 10-20 things that might happen if he fails, or what failure would look like; he then contemplates ways to prevent these; and finally he considers how he might repair a failure - how could you fix it if it happened; is there someone you could ask for help from? has anyone ever figured this out before?
...


https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_wh...transcript

Sounds a lot like a mixture of tenacity and ingenuity. If you're talking about learning from failure Scott Adams has a book all about how fail repeatedly and still succeed. Where failure isn't actually the failure the majority to believe as a permanent ordeal but a simple bump in the road to success.

Post: #3

Yes, Scott Adam's book is good. But his premise isn't so much to learn from failure as it is to have multiple plates - not just with women, but with jobs, career, streams of income, etc. According to Adams, he didn't succeed so much because he failed but because he had multiple plates and developed skills related to those plates.

Anyway, Ferris isn't advocating failing. He's advocating thinking through failure so that it doesn't cause inaction.