The Failure Advice That's Ruining Your Life
Mark Manson argues that two decades of 'fail fast' culture has made people more perfectionist and risk-averse, not less, and that the real fix is changing how you personally define failure.
The gist
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Survivorship bias makes stories like Michael Jordan's useless as guides: millions faced the same setbacks and never succeeded.
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Manson says half of teenagers now fear judgment for failing, and risk-taking among young people is at historic lows, despite widespread failure advice.
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Perfectionism is rising fastest in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, the same cultures that celebrate failure most loudly.
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Manson's practical fix is not to embrace failure but to choose your own standards, so you decide what actually counts as failing.
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