Aug 7, 2026
On failure:
- ppl respond to failure in one of two ways: consolidation mode or humiliation mode.
- consolidation mode is when you take a breath, extract principal lessons, and then with the help of your network lift yourself up to bigger and better things.
- humiliation mode is when you sit in your room for months or years unwilling to face ppl while the world speeds past you.
- you really want consolidation, and really _really_ don't want humiliation.
- if you fail at something really big and important to you it's too late to try and choose a reaction. By then a reaction is smtg that happens to you and is overdetermined-- you find yourself in one mode or the other, and have no power to induce yourself to switch.
- this is why "pick yourself up and dust yourself off" isn't useful advice for failures that break you. You could and maybe should white knuckle it I guess, but that's miserable and suboptimal.
- but you _do_ get to choose so long as you do it in advance, long before you succeed or fail. You just gotta prep the ground right.
- you fall into consolidation mode when you're proud of your actions. You were honest with ppl, you didn't permit ppl to trample over you, you weren't a mark or a rube, you treated ppl well, you did good work, you walked into situations with your eyes open, you made good decisions with the information you had (even if they later turned out to be wrong), etc.
- you fall into humiliation mode when you did the opposite of those things.
- obviously no one is brimming with pride or is ashamed over their every action. The ratio at the point of failure (rather than the event of failure itself) determines which mode you fall into.
- the slop version of what to do with this is to "stay true to your values". But what you're actually looking for is discernment. Discernment is hard to get without experience. It's also entirely unfair because some ppl have it very early, some ppl get it late, and some ppl never get it at all.
- so my somewhat dissatisfying advice on failure is: start long before you need it, read every good book in existence, build relationships with wise people and get their guidance, take ethics seriously. You need this to develop discernment, and you need discernment to be proud of how you handled whatever life threw at you. If you can do that, you'll bounce back quickly from any outcome.
- one last important thing. If you think "failing up" is derogatory, which too many ppl do, you're only hurting yourself. If you're ambitious you'll fail a lot, and this attitude will blind you to opportunities and keep you stuck. So don't do that.