Failure Lab

What

A prototype web page and resource for developing a course and long-term project focused on dealing with failure. Professor Craig Armstrong began developing a vision for creating experiences for students to engage in, manage, mitigate, and otherwise deal with the aspects of failure. 

A big part of creating wealth can be attributed to two components: measurement and leverage. Measurement implies that people can evaluate how much and how well you have done something; leverage implies risk, which can mean reward, but also failure (Graham, 2004). If you are going to do anything worthwhile in your professional life you will need to do something that is measurable and has leverage and will therefore be doing something that is visible and quantifiable and poses a risk of failure. Those are the trade-offs.  

Read

References and resources for exploring the value of failure in your professional and personal development.

Norem, J.K., & Cantor, N. 1986, Defensive pessimism: Harnessing anxiety as motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1208-1217. ("Confront failure head on to make a risky challenge seem more manageable and to reduce anxiety.")