Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
August 2018
- When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
- Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
- London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
- Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
- Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start
July 2018
- Fear This Instead Of Failure
- Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
- A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
- The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
- Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti
June 2018
- A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
- US Army Embraces Mistakes
- Blocking A Hymn
- Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
- [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed
May 2018
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
- Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
- This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
- MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process
April 2018
- Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
- Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
- Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
- Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
- Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged
March 2018
Failed to Return a Text
A Wall Street Journal article explained how text messaging plus telling white lies can be an effective way to establish relationships. Really.
Photo © Flickr User kiwanja
Read the article in full, but here’s an example:
Want to play it cool with someone? Seem busy and important? Then send a text—with a term of endearment—that appears to be written to someone else. Or ask “who is this?” when you receive a text. Have a friend text you repeatedly when you’re on a date. Claim not to have gotten a text you actually received.
Let’s call it bluffting: A text with a little bluffing.
Bluffing, as you know, is lying. It’s a type of failure, although it may be smaller than getting into a fender bender or bombing a test. Normally, we expect this kind of screwup to be limited to the poker table. But bluffing while texting can be a great technique for using failure to your advantage.
“It’s perfect for manipulation,” says Sherry Turkle, a psychologist in the program in Science, Technology, and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We can create anxiety because it’s so intimate.”
Texting is also immediate. Most people see texts faster than they see email or pick up their voice messages. And they expect a reply right away, according to Dr. Turkle, who has researched this. When we send a text, we expect a reply in three minutes, she says. If we haven’t received one in five minutes, we get antsy. “And if we still haven’t heard back in 10 minutes, we believe something is wrong, that we are being ignored.”
No matter where you are in life, failure is the secret to success. The best way to get someone’s attention might be to trick them with a weird text message. The best way to someone in their place might be to ignore their text or pretend you don’t know they are. It may bring the conversation back to reality and honesty. Try it!
