Megan McArdle Defines the Path to Success as Failing Well
In her 2014 book The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success, Megan McArdle explores how educators and other leaders can transform failure into a positive and constructive experience. In addition to drawing on her own experience, she systematically reviews existing evidence to support her thesis. As Ms. McArdle explains, when people fail early and often, they gain the knowledge they need to succeed, which is not the same as merely not failing. In other words, people learn from what goes wrong and apply that knowledge to build a better future. In terms of applying this philosophy as an educator or other leader, Megan McArdle suggests the study of failures alongside best practices. English teachers can look at the scrapped stories of famous authors, and science teachers can examine the botched experiments of Isaac Newton, for example. This initiative normalizes failure, demonstrating that it can be a launching pad to success. A climate of “safe failure” only arises when leaders actively work to remove the stigma attached to it. In life, failures are a certainty. When we sweep them under the rug, we do ourselves a disservice. When we examine them, we start constructing a path to success.
