Fail Publicly

The best way to improve at something: fail publicly. Failure specifically is important, because when you fail you can usually learn what you did wrong. When you succeed, the signal is not so strong: you could perhaps point to some things you did right, but you cannot be sure whether they mattered or whether you just got lucky. The times in my life I’ve grown the most are also the times where I have failed over and over and over again.

But failing in private is not as effective. If you mess up but no one knows about it, you can just brush the failure under the rug, even if it did expose one of your weaknesses. Failing publicly, on the other hand, applies external pressure on you. You need to be better. And when that push is there, you tend to figure out how to redeem yourself one way or another.