Learning from failure vs learning from success

[Ego]

I've been tempted to post about learning from others on several occasions. It is an important skill.

It seems to me, the people who have failed (maybe not the right word) then made changes to overcome their failure are different from those who have never failed in the first place. There are times when the two may offer similar advice, but sometimes the advice varies wildly. It's not really a problem until the advice contradicts.

It seems that people who have failed then overcome their failure are very vocal about their opinions on the topic at hand. Exercise, obesity, divorce, relationships, saving, investing, education, bike repair and James Altucher on just about everything.

I am as guilty of this as anyone else. I should probably add that sentence between each paragraph in this thread.

akratic posted this in the Alcohol moderation thread that got me thinking about it.

I would say the best advice you could get is not from someone like me, but instead someone who had a real problem that they conquered.

When you can't "do both", how do you deal with this?

[GandK]

I spent most of my life living with and around addicts.

The skills it takes to get out of any given pit, and the skills it takes to avoid falling into the pit in the first place, are completely different. One requires things like grit and strength and willpower. The other is about observation, deftness and analysis.

Generally, I think when you're going into unknown territory, you want someone who navigated well from the outset. That's who you want to ape, isn't it? (Unless you're asking yourself this question after ending up in a pit, in which case the answer is quite clear. The last thing anyone wants to hear after falling down is how they could have avoided their predicament by being less clumsy.)

[Dragline]

You "Fake it until you make it." Or something that's actually not a non-sequitur.

But it may just have more to do with certain caustic/aggressive personality traits. At least that's my self-diagnosis.

I think I learn a lot more by seeing/reading about other people failing than succeeding. Mostly about what not to do.

[BRUTE]

Altucher's just an excellent failure

in brute's experience, humans overestimate the commonality between "failing" or "success" in different circumstances/domains. brute doesn't believe there's a "success trait" or "success skill" that can be learned, or "failure traits" that can be avoided. success at A is completely different than success at B, and success for person A might work completely different from success for person B.

just yesterday brute was listening to a diet podcast in which brute kept nodding and learning things, yet the strategy proposed by the guy was the diametrical opposite of the strategy that works for brute.

[akratic]

Well I don't mean to derail this thread, but since I got quoted in the original post, let me try to clarify my stance a bit: for me consuming alcohol is about the same as smashing my head against the wall.

So I think the OP in the alcohol thread is asking: How do I go from 10 head-smashes a week to 3 head-smashes a week?

My own stance is that I'll do the head-smashes when I really have to, at a wedding for example, where it's really important to other people that everyone is similarly dazed. But even there I'll just do the 4-5 head-smashes I need to get the effect and then stop as soon as I can.

So I mean, yeah, I have control over moderating my head-smashing rate, but I wouldn't call it "success" but more like "dumb luck". Employing my tactic of "disliking head-smashing to begin with" isn't going to help at all for someone who likes it. I almost didn't post in that thread, I just really like the topic of moderation and wanted to link to the AA book.

I mean it's great if we get a nice discussion on learning though. I do think you can learn best from people who have solved the same type of problem you are trying to solve.

[jacob]

When you can't "do both", how do you deal with this?

Differently, apparently.

A useful metaphor is how statisticians try to learn about observations. The desire is to learn about the population space. If you're clueless, you can do random sampling. However, if you have a clue, you can substantially increase you learning curve (but risk being wrong at the same time) but by doing some semi-informed sampling of the entire population; such sampling becomes increasingly informed the more structure increased sampling reveals.

Imagine a picture that's revealed one pixel at a time. If you have an idea of what the picture should look like, you can choose to sample more in some areas ... e.g. if you know it's a landscape, you don't need to spend all your time sampling blue pixels of the sky.

Now imagine doing this with a combination of tacit knowledge and lattice work. This also allows a kind of sampling of the samplings. This process is strictly intuitive and it seems to work rather well. Given the cummulation of tacit knowledge (linear) and latticework (power), I find this whole process much easier now at age forty than I did when I was twenty.

Only downside ... it takes quite a bit of effort to formalize what I think and I can't cite experts

To put it another way ... learn from failureS and learn from successES but see if there's some kind of meta-principle governing them .. and once that's found, forget about the individual data points and learn from that principle instead. The successes and failures were just source material for the theory. It's the theory that will be the teacher.

[BRUTE]

How do I go from 10 head-smashes a week to 3 head-smashes a week?

My own stance is that I'll do the head-smashes when I really have to, at a wedding for example, where it's really important to other people that everyone is similarly dazed.

o_O

why would akratic smash his head against a wall, ever? and the wedding thing.. brute's never had alcohol on any wedding. nobody cared. let those foolish humans get trashed on their own.

[Ego]

Generally, I think when you're going into unknown territory, you want someone who navigated well from the outset. That's who you want to ape, isn't it? (Unless you're asking yourself this question after ending up in a pit, in which case the answer is quite clear. The last thing anyone wants to hear after falling down is how they could have avoided their predicament by being less clumsy.)

That makes sense. It depends where I am when looking for advice.

But let's say I got out of the pit following the advice of others who got out of the pit themselves. Now I am back to base. It seems like the people who had once been in the pit spend a lot of energy trying to not fall back in. They operate on the assumption that it is possible to fall back in. Whereas the person who navigated well from the outset operates on the assumption that falling into the pit is not likely. Pygmalion effect.

The successes and failures were just source material for the theory. It's the theory that will be the teacher.

There are times where we don't have enough data points or experience to concoct a theory. What then?

[jennypenny]

Can you judge the advice of the epic fails and never failed equally? I'm not sure. A person who has failed at something and then climbed out of the hole has some real, proven data to share. Granted, they are a population of 1, but their experience can be enlightening. OTOH, someone who says they've done X to avoid falling into the pit *may* have useful data, and may not. Do we know that X is the behavior that has kept them out of the pit? Is it something else? Is it that we're looking at too short a time frame and eventually they will fall into the pit? It reminds me a little of centenarians who, when asked what's kept them alive so long, answer "whiskey and bacon."

Also, it has always seemed to me that the number of different ways to fail is much smaller than the number of ways to succeed. That would mean it's easier to glean useful information from learning about failures. Success stories always seem more diverse and unique, with hard-to-repeat luck at opportune times.

That doesn't mean that a person can't learn how to be successful. I guess I see it more as learning how to do as much right as you can to set yourself up for success, not necessarily guarantee success. Failure seems like more of a guarantee based on behaviors, whereas success seems to hinge a little more on luck and serendipity.

It's similar to how a lot of people end up on FI blogs. Many come looking for ways to rein in spending and get out of debt. The advice for that is pretty straightforward. The advice for how to handle money after you've climbed out of the hole is much more varied and fraught with unproven and one-off strategies.

[cmonkey]

WRT learning from others, I tend more toward learning what NOT to do as opposed to learning what TO do based on other people's behaviors. Particularly family members but also other people that I know. I know what having too much debt and hiding it from your spouse can do (divorce - my parents). So I am very open with DW with our finances (almost to the point of annoyance sometimes ). I know what having an addiction to 'I have a coupon I must use it' can do - it gives you a cluttered house. I know what buying too much house can do - much longer time to FI.

So it seems I lean more toward identifying negative traits and avoiding them as opposed to identifying positive traits and pursuing them.

[GandK]

... Whereas the person who navigated well from the outset operates on the assumption that falling into the pit is not likely. Pygmalion effect.

You're probably right.

Maybe the answer then is to make your initial plan based on the path taken by those who avoided pits, and then know where to go for help if you happen to fall in one?

This may be just a semantic variation of "Aim for the best but prepare for the worst," LOL.

[daylen]

Also, it has always seemed to me that the number of different ways to fail is much smaller than the number of ways to succeed.

I imagine that this depends on what an individual sees as success and failure.

----------

I also imagine that someone who that failed and recovered several times is more likely to have a risk prone personallity than someone who has never failed. Since a high magnitute of success and failure is usually linked with taking risk, it is most likely rare to find someone who has achieved great success without a record of failure. This is analogous to risk and reward in one's portfolio.

[Ego]

Maybe the answer then is to make your initial plan based on the path taken by those who avoided pits, and then know where to go for help if you happen to fall in one?

This may be just a semantic variation of "Aim for the best but prepare for the worst," LOL.

Emergency workers learn about the dangers of the moth effect where drivers are attracted to the flashing lights of the emergency vehicle and turn their attention toward the vehicle, inadvertently turning their car in that direction as well. Fighter pilots, motorcycles & cyclists are trained to be mindful of target fixation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewDS5ROrLcE

The idea behind both of them is the same. Attention dictates direction. You move in the direction of the thing you are focused on.

If I target fixate on the pit will I move toward it inadvertently? Would it be better to ignore the worst-case scenarios and turn my attention in the other direction?

[cmonkey]

If I target fixate on the pit will I move toward it inadvertently?

My example would suggest otherwise. Maybe I have trained myself to avoid the pit even as I focus on it, much like the fighter pilots and cyclists?

If you cover your eyes and pretend the pit isn't there you'd probably fall right into it.

[7Wannabe5]

I think the best way to learn from others is to pay them (the nominally successful ones) money to hit you with a stick until/unless you demonstrate mastery of the skill or information set they are attempting to impart to you. Obviously, most people in our society agree with me.

brute doesn't believe there's a "success trait" or "success skill" that can be learned, or "failure traits" that can be avoided. success at A is completely different than success at B, and success for person A might work completely different from success for person B.

I think this is true if the task at hand involves any level of complexity. For instance, the solution path to "achieve financial independence" might look quite different for a 22 year old Sri-Lankan male INTJ with some high-level technology skills and a desire to travel the world than a 51 year old American female ENTP with some entrepreneurial experience and the desire to create a permaculture. What I like about Jacob's book is it offers more theory than instruction, so lends itself to infinite solution paths (webs?)

It is funny how we sometimes feel more qualified or compelled to offer advice in realms in which we have failed and then succeeded rather than realms in which we never had any difficulty. However, this may be due to the altruistic desire to spare others pain we have suffered being stronger than the desire to spare others pain we have avoided. Like Akratic, I have no clue how to advise anybody how to drink moderately or beat a gambling addiction beyond saying some likely incredibly unhelpful things like "Prefer lucid thinking" or "Learn math", but I would really like to help others to avoid being stuck in a miserable marriage or hauling around too much excess blubber. For better or worse, I think most of my success following failure in life was due to it wasn't a priority, and then it became a priority. And I don't think just telling yourself that something "should" be a priority is enough to turn the trick. Change has to occur first.

Also, I think something like "you will find your Guru when you are ready" is quite true. I was working as the inventory manager of a large bookstore, and I opened a box of books that included a book on the topic of how to sell books on the internet. I followed the instructions step-by-step, and I was successful supporting myself with my own little business for a number of years, and I was much happier than I had been working for somebody else. It was that easy.

[jacob]

I think the best way to learn from others is to pay them (the nominally successful ones) money to hit you with a stick until/unless you demonstrate mastery of the skill or information set they are attempting to impart to you. Obviously, most people in our society agree with me.

Sounds like the best way to teach too! Zen monks would approve. We'll try this at the next ERE meetup. Bring money!

[GandK]

I think the best way to learn from others is to pay them (the nominally successful ones) money to hit you with a stick until/unless you demonstrate mastery of the skill or information set they are attempting to impart to you. Obviously, most people in our society agree with me.

Sounds like the best way to teach too! Zen monks would approve. We'll try this at the next ERE meetup. Bring money!

I'm going to be busy that weekend.

[Sclass]

The skills it takes to get out of any given pit, and the skills it takes to avoid falling into the pit in the first place, are completely different. One requires things like grit and strength and willpower. The other is about observation, deftness and analysis.
.)

Thanks for posting this. This solidified random thoughts in my mind about addictions I've beaten or avoided.

[Dragline]

I think the best way to learn from others is to pay them (the nominally successful ones) money to hit you with a stick until/unless you demonstrate mastery of the skill or information set they are attempting to impart to you. Obviously, most people in our society agree with me.

Sounds like the best way to teach too! Zen monks would approve. We'll try this at the next ERE meetup. Bring money!

I'm going to be busy that weekend.

I'll bring a video camera.

[BRUTE]

Can you judge the advice of the epic fails and never failed equally? I'm not sure. A person who has failed at something and then climbed out of the hole has some real, proven data to share. Granted, they are a population of 1, but their experience can be enlightening. OTOH, someone who says they've done X to avoid falling into the pit *may* have useful data, and may not.

brute's been thinking about this and agrees. if humans are walking across a 2 dimensional map, a specific "hole" isn't in everyone's path. thus the advice of someone who's never been in the pit might be great, because they avoided it, or completely useless, because they got lucky.

for example, brute's advice to alcoholics amounts to "don't drink alcohol, it's disgusting and makes humans feel like shit". very useless to anyone who happens to enjoy the taste of alcohol, or the buzz.

similarly, the advice of Trump to brute about making money could be "just get a small loan of a million dollars from brute's father to start out". right.

since pits and solutions to avoiding/escaping pits are very specific to individuals, the advice is going to be specific. a human who's been in the pit is at least known to have had the same/a similar problem. their solution might or might not work, but that's at least something.