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Confronting failure as a core life skill

buildinghealthier.substack.com

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Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#11

Post by sdwr »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #6
38 wrote: post #4

I wish I could be more honest with my failures, but people have abused my trust so many times I have lost count. at some point you just have to cut your losses and keep it to yourself, or to a few select few.

Right here with you. At my last company, I tried to get the team comfortable “I don’t know,” “that didn’t pan out,” etc. I couldn’t get the lead on the other team to catch on. He’d bullshit an answer over a few minutes in a meeting, and Product and Management would eat that shit up. That team was no better/worse at failure than anyone else, but apparently non-engineers can’t be bothered with the truth of humans: we’r…

What changed since then? Asking for a friend ;)

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#12

Post by themodelplumber »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #6
38 wrote: post #4

I wish I could be more honest with my failures, but people have abused my trust so many times I have lost count. at some point you just have to cut your losses and keep it to yourself, or to a few select few.

Right here with you. At my last company, I tried to get the team comfortable “I don’t know,” “that didn’t pan out,” etc. I couldn’t get the lead on the other team to catch on. He’d bullshit an answer over a few minutes in a meeting, and Product and Management would eat that shit up. That team was no better/worse at failure than anyone else, but apparently non-engineers can’t be bothered with the truth of humans: we’r…

Any typical group of humans is still a young grub of an organism compared to the individual in those ways. So what you described can be a very hard ask for basically all of humanity, as seen through a team lens, at this point in history.

Sometimes it can help to continually plan and provide gentle interventions that expose the team to individual examples of what you are looking for. As long as that doesn't too severely overlap with what amounts to activities or embarrassing admissions that could torpedo a team member's career later on when you're gone. A very hard ask overall.

Probably the hardest part: If you can do it yourself, as an individual, congrats you get to feel like you could inspire people. But that's you as an individual. The group-organism experiences growth prompts as stress just like individuals do, but with far worse tools for coping. And one of the worst counter-pressures is the ever-present possibility of faking it for a bit and then just changing jobs to escape the awkward stuff, maybe getting a raise in the process.

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#14

Post by senkora »

The best writing I’ve found on the experience of failure and how painful it can be, is “Eating Glass” by Mark D Jacobsen. A lot of sample chapters can be read here: https://markdjacobsen.com/eating-glass/

I highly, highly recommend this book. I have no connection to Mark but I did find his book through a comment of his on HN.

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#15

Post by calrain »

Wow, this aligns with my experiences starting a solo tech start up and then getting acquired as I ran out of cash.

The company that acquired my company then went through internal struggles and the result was that I left after a few years, unable to add value any more.

It feels like a failure, but equally it feels like a good lesson, but a painful one.

It's 2 years after I left and I still think about it.

If I could say something to my past self, I would say that "You're about to learn a hard life lesson" and not change anything.

I'm careful now to try and shine a balanced light on my work there, it wasn't awesome, and it wasn't horrid.

There are more people out there with similar life stories of hard lessons learnt than you might expect, and it's good for both of you to connect with them.

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#18

Post by kxrm »

I am pretty open about my past failures with others but I definitely understand why people aren't. There is a stigma associated with failure that society still hasn't accepted. My last job I held the title of VP of Engineering. It was a small company and during my time there I recognized that the title was outsized for what I actually did. I was actually more of an Engineering Manager. All of my direct reports were ICs not other managers.

I ended up leaving that job because politically at that company I had no voice, and people above me lacked basic leadership skills and continually failed to recognize it. Additionally whenever I would call out issues, it always would somehow manifest into a problem with me. So I ended up leaving, and not on great terms.

Once I took a long break, I started looking for jobs again. The title I carried on my resume was bullshit, and trying to interview for Senior Engineering positions proved difficult. When I made the interview I made it clear what I did at that company. I told them that the title didn't represent my duties. I feel like some saw this as a blight. I finally accepted a job as a Software Engineer and now am slowly fixing my career.

The lesson I learned was to never accept a worthless title. Somehow people still misunderstand my directness about this job in my history. It carries a strange weight, but hopefully with time I can correct it.

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#19

Post by productizeme024 »

Failure is a complex issue for many of us (me def included). While I do think it's really important for us to be able to openly talk about failure, I think it's just as important (if not more) to frame failure as not just part of the process but as a good thing. Mistakes is how many of us learn and even if we can learn other ways, making mistakes can be a fantastic teacher. I've found that learning from them dulls the pain some and turns it more into an opportunity instead of a regret.

Re: Confronting failure as a core life skill

#20

Post by blh75 »

senkora wrote: post #14

The best writing I’ve found on the experience of failure and how painful it can be, is “Eating Glass” by Mark D Jacobsen. A lot of sample chapters can be read here: https://markdjacobsen.com/eating-glass/ I highly, highly recommend this book. I have no connection to Mark but I did find his book through a comment of his on HN.

This sounds like a great book - thanks for the rec!
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