Don't Romanticize Failure
“Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.” — André Gide
Hey Coaches,
Here you go!
✍️ Articles
Why We Shouldn’t Romanticize Failure: Lauren Eskreis-Winkler explains why we overestimate learning from failure, how the failure gap hurts individuals, and what it costs communities.
“But we find that being too inspirational—exaggerating the benefits of failure—is actually de-motivating. The takeaway is that when we talk about failure, we should aim to be accurate.”
“Viewed from the outside, failure offers a spectacular opportunity to reassess and grow. But for the people actually failing, well, that opportunity is a little less appetizing.”
“Our paper suggests that believing too strongly in failure’s benefits has the same negative consequences as fearing failure: people disengage from the experience.”
🎙️ Podcast
The Schrager Hour: From Hunters to the Hunted with Jaguars HC Liam Coen: Coen walks through some of the developments of the team, but more enjoyable is who he turns to for life and leadership advice, including Jon Gordon. Note: Start at 13:00. [7/21/2026—44 minutes] Apple | Spotify | YouTube
“What you learn is balance is not truly attainable if you’re trying to be great... Prioritizing your priorities though is real. And so being in the moment and prioritizing that time.”
💭 Miscellaneous
“Show me the incentive, I’ll show you the outcome” — Charlie Munger (two examples)
Amazon employees are doing random unnecessary task automations to consume tokens and to show their bosses that they’re using AI more. (source)
Before 2025–26, NBA players declined nearly half of end-of-quarter heave opportunities to protect their shooting percentages, especially efficient shooters and guys in contract years. Once the league stopped counting missed heaves against individual stats, the heave rate jumped from 58% to 94%, showing that removing one bad metric almost completely realigned player behavior with team goals. (source)
📺 Video
Last Lecture Series: “How to Win Without Crushing Your Soul” - Graham Weaver (34:00
Weaver makes the case that life is an internal game played in an external arena—and gives three concrete practices to start winning it: fire your coach (the inner voice that mistakes fear for motivation), pull the nails out of your head (face the thing you are avoiding, because everything you want is on the other side of worse first), and trust your second voice (the voice that speaks through energy instead of fear).