How to Succeed at Failing, Part 1: The Chain of Events (Update)

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🗓️ 9 May 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad decisions. Can this pattern be reversed? We try — with stories about wildfires, school shootings, and love.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.
0:05.9	I'm sure you've heard people say that failure is a great teacher.
0:09.6	But how?
0:10.7	How does that work?
0:11.9	What do we learn from failure that prevents more the same?
0:15.7	How do we not let fear of failure keep us from trying things?
0:20.3	We tried to answer those questions and many more in a
0:23.7	series we first published in 2023. I thought it was worth publishing again, so today you will hear
0:30.3	part one. We've updated facts and figures as necessary. As always, thanks for listening.
0:40.5	In August of 2023, on a Monday morning, the National Weather Service issued a warning of
0:46.0	high winds in Maui County, Hawaii.
0:48.9	By the next morning, the wind was gusting at over 70 miles an hour.
0:52.3	Here's how one resident described it.
0:54.8	Tiles are getting ripped off roofs, leaving exposed rooftops with bare wood everywhere.
1:01.1	Power lines are like spaghetti strings everywhere.
1:05.3	The island started to lose electricity, and near the town of Lahaina, there was a brush fire. Firefighters arrived,
1:13.5	and it was soon declared contained, but later that day, the high winds caused a flare-up.
1:19.7	We could see the smoke, and all of a sudden, oh my gosh, the quickness with which it happened
1:24.9	was the craziest part. It was just so fast.
1:33.7	What happened next, you have probably read about or seen in horrifying videos and news coverage.
1:37.2	The town of Lahaina was swallowed by fire.
1:41.0	People tried to flee in their cars, but the roads were clogged.
	...

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