Hey there, Stephen Dovner. Today we're continuing our update of a series on failure we published a couple years ago called How to Succeed at Failing.

In this episode, you will hear some personal stories from people who tried something new and failed.

One of those people is Travis Thull, who thought what the world really needed

was a new way to make instant ramen. Stay tuned to the end to hear how that worked out.

We have updated all facts and figures as necessary. As always, thanks for listening.

We've been making Freakonomics Radio for a while now, and there are two themes we have come back to again and again.

The first is the value of persistence, of staying the course, not giving up.

Our friend Angela Duckworth, a research psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote a book about this. It's called Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

Here she is on another podcast we used to make together called No Stupid Questions.

I think the reason why there are all these aphorisms about not giving up

and maybe why so much of my research has focused on the psychology of staying the course,

is that sometimes the road not taken, the track that you want to switch to, is appealing not because it is objectively better,

but because it's objectively easier just in the short run.

In other words, we give up because we're lazy, or maybe impatient or intimidated, or

we're scared to fail.

That makes sense, doesn't it?

Duckworth is saying we might be better off by learning to tough it out.

But the other theme we have often explored is pretty much the opposite of grit.

Back in 2011, we made an episode called The Upside of Quitting.

Here's my Freakonomics friend and co-author Steve Levitt more recently.

It is a compliment to be called a quitter precisely because we live in a world where so many forces push us to persist far too long at failing endeavors.

Now, Leavitt is an economist, not a psychologist, and his ideas about quitting come from basic economic concepts.

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