What do we learn from Success?

He presents "The Hero Story" as a concept in psycho-analytics. I was only aware of it in story telling as a useful tool to create a plot, but here he is presenting it to us in psycho-analytics. We are the heroes of our story, we work to gain what we want, and gaining what we want makes us happy. When we don't get what we want, we are presented with the chaotic nature of the world and are forced to face this chaos. Psycho-analytics is a tool that help dive into the skeletons, old wounds, and the ghosts of failures past that still haunt us to this day by taking the plunge into the underworld to face these things head on. This gives us a way for dealing with failure, but looking at them as opportunity, not as something to get worked up over.

To start with, there is his model of learning which bothers me. I'm all about learning and learning strategies, and his statement "All learning comes failure" rings false with me. 

He expresses failures coming from actions, like telling a joke that fails, so does all learning comes from actions? "The stove is hot" is not a statement that needs to be acted on by touching it. I know the potential danger of hot surfaces not because of my third degree burns, but because I see how the hot surface acts with other things, and conclude that I shouldn't touch the stove. If I touch the stove, then my perceptions and assumptions of the situation were off. Learning can be done through action, but it can be done through observations.

I point because I'm wondering how do I fail through observation, but still learn? I can watch the failures of others and learn through their mistakes. He went off the ski jump and got really hurt is an observation of someone's failure, and it still forces me to confront the chaos of life. What did he think he could go off of the ski jump? Why did he fail? Would the same thing happen to me if I try that? Isn't it just as likely I can confront these things by watching others succeed? I can make a failure in observation, he succeeded because he drank the right beer. Maybe I can observe as a contrast to my own failures in life, i.e. he can succeed at that but not me because I'm pudgy and never learned how to ski. In my personal case, I can ski and I'm in good shape. Which means why not observe their success and seek to emulate how they achieved that through routines and training they did that might help me if I wished to do the ski jump.

If I decide to do that, then I can start learning through action which brings failure. I think a more accurate statement would be "Learning comes with failure" Failure will occur, but it's not the point we learn from. We learn from making the model.

Here's my model: We gather information, we test our hypothesis, we reflect on our results, and we start again at point one. We will gather information based on our assumptions. We can gather information on cultural assumptions (things we "know" in the US about race and information we get to prove or disprove these assumptions), previous experience (My tire went flat last week, because the tread was gone. My other tire went flat a few weeks before, because the tread was gone. Maybe I should change all my tires since they seem to be wearing out), and observations (this person is into me because they keep talking to me and putting extra effort into themselves when they around me. When I notice people doing that, it usually works in my favor). It's good mathematics and good science to challenge our assumptions and test them. Take an assumption, gather information from a source that doesn't agree with us, test the assumption with the new information, does it fail or succeed? We can do that by reading a book or watching a video or listening to a podcast of a person that has a different view. We need to reflect on this new information and how it fits in with what we know, and sometimes that means confronting a belief that is the core of who we are.

You are at a party, and you tell a joke the joke falls flat. Facing the chaotic nature of the world and asking why you failed is reflection. And I agree with that. You can reflect on success though. A reflection like "why did I fail then but succeed now" is a reflection on success. Looking at the success of others and asking what they did to succeed is a reflection on success.

Does this break and devalue the video and argument as a whole? Not necessarily. I have problems with the presentation of the video, and I have problems with the presentation of the hero's story, and I don't agree with the power of psycho-analytics. This argument about learning and the implications made can be analyzed though, where the other stuff might just be a bias on my part.

We are presented with "a thing that makes us happy", and we the audience will think the opposite is true. However, he shows us that we think of failure as negatives and these negatives are presented to us as stories. He doesn't say stories but offers examples like "Maybe you are not as funny as you think you are, maybe you are not around people that you understand." These are stories our anxiety tell us though. Or the stories our depression tell us. My happiness tells me stories as well, it feeds my ego and reminds me of my greatness. Feelings of loneliness tell me the story of the darkness and evil that exists in the world. I am not my feelings of anxiety. My feelings of anxiety and the stories they tell make up a part of me, because anxiety to a situation is an emotional responce to a situation that is all too human. I am also my happiness, my passion, and my joy and with them comes their own stories. While it is fine to reflect on my failures, I need to remember that I am a sum of both my successes and my failures. The stories are not necessarily the thing that is making me unhappy, the unhappiness might be the thing telling the story. I might reflect on the struggles of my childhood and my failures if I'm in such a mood, but I can also think about the fun I had in the same situation. The memorie I have still exists because of the powerful emotions that surround them, the stories that surround them comes from my interpenetration, and my interpretation may be biased at any given moment. My relationship with my father is something I can switch back and forth on. He taught me to draw, think about history, gave me an interest in how things work and encouraged our creativity. He is also the reason why I walk on the balls of my feet because he would get angry if I stomped around. Do I want to talk about him as an inspirational figure or an abusive authority completely depends on my emotional state. Overall, my relation with him now is good, even if I don't agree with things he says and I find myself struggling to share my new interests with him now. In the real world, he is a person with his own thoughts and experiences, but my perception of him comes in part from the stories my emotions tell me.

What I'm presenting is that these stories are a coping mechanism for the chaos in the world. I failed to get the promotion and now I'm unhappy can be a cause and effect situation. "Why do I continue to fail in my life" can be a thought that pops up as a reaction to failure. Acknowledging how we react to failure is a step to self awareness which leads to growth. He is presenting us with this awareness. What I keep coming back to is that in this video, there is a focus on the negative and the failure. "Why am I so awesome and good at what I do" is also a valid thought that leads to reflection on success. The first statement is a coping mechanism for failure, and in the second case we see it as a coping mechanism to success. You might of succeeded because you have the best stradgey for dealing with all the information, or maybe blind luck has sent you down a series of events that leads to your greatness. That's why we reflect on our greatness, to spend the time acknowledging where we came from, what helped us succeed, and how we might continue to gain what we want, as Peterson says. We can learn from our success, we learn our strengths. And we an reflect on how are strengths help us. I'm not ugly and some people find me attractive, which means people will treat me better then if my face was melted in an accident. I'm actually able to talk about wide variety of topics, which makes me some what charismatic. I'm mostly emotionally stable, which attracts people to me. These are all strengths, as opposed to the weaknesses brought to life by my failures. I tend to fail in planning, organization, and focus. I can get frustrated with the pace of things, which can cause me to react in a way that does not help me. Instead of talking things out with others, I can leap to assumptions and become grumpy and moody. I can snap at people over unimportant things when I feel stressed over things like money and job stability.

I like that there is an air of "you are the master of your own destiny" attitude of the video. I feel that reflection and analysis of your feelings is important. All learning comes from failure is an overstatement, however and that we can learn just as much from ourselves from our success and gaining what we want. Take the chance to reflect on the strengths as well as the weaknesses, and figure out how these things lead to your successes and failures.