EP210: Keep Failing Faster But Not With This…

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You know what?

We think the F word gets misunderstood alllll the time. 

And no, we don’t mean the word you’re most likely thinking of now. 😉

We’re talking about FAILURE – the word that brings all sorts of fears, worries, shame, guilt, and other emotions. 

This may come as a shock, but the truth is that failure isn’t always a bad thing – there are actually certain types of failure that can be used for good! 

Don’t get us wrong, no one LOVES to fail. 

Especially not Type A peeps like us. 🤣

Buttt no one’s perfect, right? And everyone stumbles at some point along the way.

That’s why it’s important to know the right way to fail – so you can learn from mistakes, adapt, and keep yourself moving forwards!

Failure is not an option.

Or is it? 😵😵

If you’re anything like us, we have this rooted belief that failure is the end, a sign that we have underperformed, a life event to avoid and even be ashamed of. 

➡️ You are a FAILURE!

Have you ever heard those words?

It’s probably the worst “F” word in the English language that we can think of. And if we’re being really honest, this word is loaded with a lot of baggage, emotional scars, embarrassment, and a sense of defeat.

In the world of business, it can mean financial devastation.

Culturally, we are taught to avoid failure; however, recent studies by Harvard Business School have suggested that the fastest path to success is to fail faster. 

The article essentially states that failure is not only inevitable and a part of life, it can also be a good thing! 😆😆

Okay, so before you all start getting too excited and try to start failing as fast as possible, we feel like it’s important to talk about the different types of failure so that we can really understand what we are dealing with. 

This isn’t just fun and games, either, if you don’t understand these three types of failure because if you failed (pun intended) at the wrong one, the consequences may be just as catastrophic as all your anxieties have led you to believe.

Foundations of Failure

Now, who remembers the great 🧻 toilet paper shortage of 2020, also known as the global pandemic?

It stresses us out even thinking back to those days when lines would form at 🎯 Target before they even opened for something as simple as toilet paper.

Grocery store shelves were empty, something most of us have never seen before in our adult lives. 😞😞

This wasn’t due to the failure of store associates to stock the shelves, this massive issue caused toilet paper prices to skyrocket during the early days of the global shutdown in 2020. And this, friends, is considered a Complex Failure. ⬅️

You see, Complex Failure doesn’t mean that it is difficult to comprehend, instead, Complex Failure occurs when there are a multitude of events that collide together all at once.

These are things like global stay-at-home orders, factory shutdowns, and distribution channel bottlenecks. 

At the same time, an uncontrollable global outbreak of a virus unfolded, leaving everyone grappling with the challenge of containment. 

This kind of failure is systemic, affecting the entire system. 

When such failures occur, the resulting impact is far-reaching and widespread.  The second type of failure gives us flashbacks to 10th grade physics class.

Remember that experiment where you had to figure out how to keep a raw egg from cracking when dropped from the top of the football stadium’s bleachers—a good 30 feet high? Stick around till the end, and we’ll spill the beans on how that experiment turned out for us.

✔️ This second type of failure, called Intelligent Failure, allows you to take on more of the role of a scientist. 

And this, friends, is the “right” kind of failure.

Intelligent Failures are the ones that teach us something valuable, helping us step forward with a bit more wisdom.

When we get the hang of navigating these intelligent failures, it opens up the door for innovation. 

We also understand that any risks we dive into are just stepping stones to learning and personal growth.

This type of failure is where fresh knowledge begins.

To fit into this category, the failure has to occur in uncharted territory, while chasing a specific goal, being guided by a hypothesis rather than random chance.

In intelligent failure, the aim is to keep the failure as small as possible—just tiny enough to learn from it. 🤓🤓

The egg physics experiment perfectly embodies this concept.

If the experiment goes south, the real-world impact should be pretty minimal; after all, it was just an extra credit assignment—the worst-case scenario being that an egg is cracked and you have a little bit of a mess on your hands.

At the end of the day, Intelligent Failure revolves around testing ideas, and understanding that even if you stumble, each failure inches you closer to uncovering something new, which is exciting! 😘😘

We hope that by this point you can see that not all failures are created equal, not all failures are the same, and the stakes are very different for each kind. This brings us to our third type of failure. In this type of failure, the sky’s the limit.

Okay, not really, but we do want to talk about ✈️ airplanes for a second. 

Nan – According to aerospike.com, “At any given time, there are between 8,000 and 13,000 airplanes in the air. Over 30,000 flights with two million passengers on board take off daily in the United States alone.”

In fact, Harvard did a study that shows that, “…flying in the US, Europe, and Australia is significantly safer than driving a car. Your odds of being in an accident during a flight is one in 1.2 million, and the chance of that being fatal is one in 11 million. Comparatively, your chances of dying in a car crash are over 200,000 times higher, averaging around one in 5,000.”

That’s some pretty crazy math. 🤯🤯

So what do you think is a contributing factor to this tiny fraction of fatalities from commercial flights?

Ultimately as an industry, they obviously take this type of failure very seriously.

Quite simply, this is called the Basic Failure. ⬅️

Basic Failure is essentially a straightforward mistake—one that might sometimes result in minor hiccups, no big deal. But other times, it can spiral into seriously terrible outcomes.  In the realm of Basic Failure, messing up just isn’t an option.

That’s why pilots spend so much time practicing and experimenting on flight simulators.

Similarly, 🩺💊 medical students learn first in a lab, not at the surgery table. 

👉 So in the world of real estate investing, you can imagine how shocking it is for us when we hear about so-called real estate pros or fund managers being careless with their investors’ money.

There are just some fundamental things you’re supposed to know in advance, not figure out as you go.

With millions of dollars and a bunch of people’s hard-earned money on the line, there’s too much at stake to be learning on the fly.

So, when you’re diving into real estate investment, it’s crucial to slow down and thoroughly vet the team handling the asset. Check for any 🚩 red flags or signs that they might be prone to making basic mistakes with your hard-earned cash.

Big thanks to those who stuck around till the end of this episode! Now that you’ve figured out which failures to embrace and which to dodge, tune into this episode to learn about assembling your very own Apartments Dream Team.

Oh, and about that 🥚 egg experiment—here’s a neat trick: stuff a grapefruit with your egg, pop it into a coffee can filled with raw rice, seal it up, and you’re all set!