The F Word
Musings on failure
I gave this talk at the Failure In Five event for IDSA Atlanta. Here it is, to the best of my ability, transcribed along with my slides.
Hi, I’m Michael Gluzman. I’m the design manager for Sprite in North America over at The Coca-Cola company.
I’m here to talk about the F word.
Fuck.
We say fuck when we fail. We say it because failures tend to suck, they make us angry or sad. But then there are these moments of clarity and insight that follow. I thought I could illustrate that by sharing some of my own failures:
I’m 5 years old. I get into a fight with my older brother…9 years older. And 9 years taller. But I’m like 5…with a loose tooth. And while my brother has me pinned upside down over the back of a couch, his big hands clenched around my throat…there’s my little tooth… just dangling. And BLOOP. It wiggles out and goes down my throat. You can imagine the tooth fairy wasn’t interested in that one. I freak out, the fight ends; I’ve lost for all intents and purposes. I wasn’t truly hurt of course… but I learned you’re not supposed to win every fight, you might not be ready for them. But there is always a round two.
I fail my first test. Oops.
I fail my 10th test or so… oops again.
I have failed countless tests. Clearly this is attributed to part of a deeper, bigger failure. Fast forward… I didn’t get a chance at competing for design merit even when, supposedly, my school’s judges unanmiously voted for me. It turns out all those failed tests added up to low GPAs and disqualifications at the things I really cared about. I learned even the things I didn’t care about and thought weren’t interesting were still connected to the things I did care about and thought were interesting. and “not caring” doesn’t make you cool. having the confidence to care, that’s cool.
My grandmother whom I spent many summer vacations with in my childhood is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It’s terminal. The whole family flies out to Seattle to be by her side in her last moments. She’s pumped full of morphine, barely concious, but we all take turns saying our last words. When it’s mine I kneel next to her and say… “I got back together with my ex-girlfriend.” And then I couldn’t hold it together; I started crying and had to step out… just the gravity of the situation got to me, not what because of I said. Where I failed was never having said anything else to her. I told her something so banal when what I just wanted her to know how was much I loved her and appreciated her, enjoyed all the summers with her and grandpa. how much I learned from her, how much I was going to miss her.
So this one took me a while to come to terms with but ultimately I learned we don’t always think so strategically in life in love. Emotions get in the way and we don’t say the right thing. It takes effort to be mindful and present in the moments that matter.
The startup I was working with for 3 years, called Scholrly closes its doors. It was founded by two of my brilliant friends, and I was the head of all things design, from branding to UI & UX. I was working with some of the smartest people I know, and we all cared a lot about a prodcut that was meant to help an industry ripe for innovation. And yet our product failed despite caring, and hard work. In a way, it’s like that fight with my brother, we weren’t ready for it. Maybe it wasn’t the right time, maybe not the right city, maybe it just wasn’t the right product to begin with. It was here that I learned about the duality of failure — we all kicked ass at we did, all worked hard. And yet we all carry responsibility for the failure of Scholrly. No one was to blame and we are all to blame. We failed together.
That’s the last one. The thing is, I learn from every failure. And I think they make me a better designer.
In design we talk a lot about users. About empathy. I have this theory that failures start a build up of these sort of calluses of experience —they’re uncomfortable, but they are evidence of life’s friction. Perhaps that’s wisdom. Perhaps failure leads to wisdom. And then you use that wisdom to design more thoughtfully, with empathy, as a good designer should.
So say fuck, and fuck it.
Go try.
Fail.
Get wiser.
Thank you.
