Fail Forward: The Power of Learning from Mistakes

0:10

for as long as I can remember mistakes

0:13

have been counted as a bad thing and

0:15

something to be ashamed of in reality

0:18

this is not at all the case believe it

0:20

or not some of our most important

0:22

findings have been from mistakes for

0:24

example in 1928 Alexander Fleming left a

0:28

petri dish out and went on vacation when

0:30

he came back mold had grown ruining his

0:33

experiment except that mold turned out

0:36

to be penicillin and that mistake saved

0:39

millions of lives in my own academic

0:42

career I've had many successes and I've

0:44

also made many mistakes we all do this

0:47

this is how we learn

0:49

the frustrating part is that mistakes

0:51

are often viewed as such a negative we

0:54

forget that they can be our most

0:55

valuable teaching and learning

0:58

moments 35 years ago as part of my

1:01

undergraduate degree I was taking a

1:03

general chemistry lab and as with many

1:05

general chemistry labs our final project

1:08

involved two tests our grade depended on

1:11

how accurate we were which was a lot of

1:13

pressure

1:15

every time I ran them my test kept

1:17

coming out incorrectly i remember my

1:20

stress level increasing i knew my grade

1:22

depended on this test and as far as I

1:24

was concerned so did my future career

1:27

prospects i ran and reran and reran

1:30

every test I could and I did not know

1:32

what was going on nor did I know what I

1:34

was doing wrong after admitting defeat

1:37

and shamefully going to my chemistry

1:39

professor's office to ask for help he

1:42

helped me think through what I did what

1:44

results I should have had and what could

1:46

possibly interfere with them as we were

1:49

working through the problem a good

1:51

friend of mine walked into his office to

1:53

figure out what was going on my

1:55

professor looked at me to explain what

1:58

went wrong to her which I did

1:59

successfully since these mistakes were

2:01

now burned into my brain 35 years later

2:05

I still know how to run those tests

2:06

perfectly and I still remember the

2:08

lesson and importance of failure in the

2:11

end it wasn't about doing the lab

2:13

perfectly the first second or even third

2:15

time it was about how I handled things

2:18

when they didn't work out mistakes are

2:20

inevitable and handling mistakes well is

2:23

a choice here are some practical steps

2:26

for when you make mistakes own it don't

2:29

hide your mistake reflect what went

2:32

wrong what would you do differently act

2:35

apply the lesson next time and then

2:38

share help others learn from what you've

2:40

just been through if you take these

2:42

steps when you make a mistake you're

2:44

setting yourself up for more success in

2:46

the future now you might still be

2:48

worried about admitting you made a

2:49

mistake well it turns out I'm not the

2:52

only one who makes mistakes we all do

2:55

that's life and that's how we learn so

2:58

let's turn to some faculty who share

2:59

their own learning moments

3:02

i was rejected for more grants and

3:04

fellowships in my first few years of

3:06

graduate school than anyone I've ever

3:08

met to this day after about three years

3:11

of literally 99% failure I struck big

3:14

and then again and again and again since

3:17

then I've had a very strong success rate

3:19

the key is that I learned from all of

3:21

that failure Jacob Allgeier associate

3:24

professor department of ecology and

3:26

evolutionary biology earlier in my

3:28

career I had a manuscript that was

3:30

rejected by eight journals without

3:32

review the ninth journal I submitted the

3:34

manuscript to reviewed and eventually

3:37

published it this turned out to be one

3:39

of my best cited papers cited over 800

3:42

times George Zhang Marshall W Nirenberg

3:46

collegiate professor Department of

3:48

Ecology and Evolutionary

3:50

Biology what it all comes down to is

3:52

that it's okay to fail in fact everyone

3:55

fails at one time or another this is how

3:57

we learn if someone tells you they've

4:00

never failed at anything they're either

4:01

misremembering or they're lying many of

4:05

our failures become the most important

4:07

steps along our learning journey as you

4:10

go you can learn to embrace failure

4:12

learn from it and keep moving forward

4:15

happy studying everyone