daily reflections: why i learnt to avoid failure instead of chasing success

Lately, I have been thinking a lot. Too much, in fact. There are usually a few things that trigger this - a transition into a new life phase, a stark comparison with your peers, or simply when you realised you haven’t been achieving the goals you’ve been setting.

For me it’s a bit of each, but really - mainly, the last one. And I know why. I’m quitting too much, too soon. And honestly, it felt like a good reason every time.

And that’s the irony of life, if too much of something is happening - you know something is off. Like how if everyone you meet says they don’t understand what you are saying - the problem is probably you.

You could never know 
No matter how much you want to believe otherwise

When you feel regret or think that you should have done something else on hindsight, it’s simply a way for your brain to make sense of the situation.

Suppose you decided to drop out of university to build a startup. Two years in and your startup shuts down. You start thinking that dropping out of university was a bad idea. But was it really?

You wouldn’t have known if you didn’t spend two years building it. You probably thought it was going to be a million-dollar idea then right?

Maybe you say that if you had talked to people, or had a better decision-making framework, you could have avoided it. And I agree, but that — that very thought that you need to have a better process for making decisions is the lesson. Still a rather worthwhile lesson.

Some lessons are easier learnt through reading - while others need to be learnt the hard way. What matters is not the number of lessons you go through, but that you’re getting better every time.

Your first instinct might be to think that there’s too much to learn — but you’ll be surprising how many people, including myself, make the same mistakes over and over again. We’re crazy people.

If I could start again 
It’s not too late

If you think about it, people who often say “if I could start again” are the ones who don’t correct their mistake. Because if you had corrected it, you would have moved on.

The exception to this rule is mistakes that are irreversible - those that get you into jail or something gravely immoral or otherwise.

Avoid these and nearly everything else is simply an experiment you need to conduct.

If I could start again, I wouldn’t have quit so soon. In my defence, I didn’t really “quit” - I pivoted. My objective stayed the same despite all the changes. But it took all these quitting to make me realise that I’m quitting too soon. I couldn’t know before. Even though everyone was telling me otherwise then - I had to learn it.

There’s no one (right) answer
There’s no secret ingredient - Kungfu Panda

Charlie Munger often emphasizes a concept he calls Inversion, which he discusses in Poor Charlie's Almanack. Instead of obsessively chasing success, he suggests focusing on avoiding failure.

On the other hand, the causes of failure are usually clear and well-documented. By carefully identifying and steering clear of these common pitfalls, you create a foundation for success.

More concretely, stop finding the “secret sauce”, just avoid quitting, avoid being inconsistent, avoid working with bad people - and eventually only success is left.

And better yet - even if you don’t find success, you’ll enjoy the journey without regrets. Because you literally can’t blame yourself - you avoided everything you knew wouldn’t work.

And I think another reason why this works is that nobody really knows how to “create” success. It’s easy to say on hindsight, but nobody can guarantee success (although some are more capable and more likely to achieve it with experience and skills). There’s just way too much luck and circumstance involved - more than we care to admit.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is usually trying to sell you something.

With so much information and experiences today, the problem is rarely not knowing what to do but not doing it.

The flipped side of this coin is knowing so much that you end up too confused to do anything.

It ends up becoming a process of elimination until your probability of success increases. Eventually by doing more and more (or failing more and more), you will become successful.

It’s not promised - there’s still an element of uncertainty that cannot be overcome. But that’s out of your control. And we need to learn to embrace it- something I still struggle with.

You can never lose until time runs out 
Losing is a time construct

Time is an artificial constraint in competitions - which creates the concept of losing. Even when losing to someone, it’s because the time ran out.

In life, losing is simply failing to do what you want by the time you leave this world. And that’s a really long time. For most people.

Which is why people often say it’s never too late to start. Because it’s true. Most major skills or achievements come within 10-20 years, and relatively small portion of today’s life expectancy.

The problem is that we’re trying to do too many things and fail to reap the compounding effects of sticking to one thing.

And that’s it for today’s review. Till next time.

Everything is a lesson in disguise,
Joesurf