Book Forum 

# *The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success*

Viking, 2014

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Date and Time 

February 24, 2014 1 - 2:30 PM EST 

Location 

Hayek Auditorium 

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##### Featuring 

Featuring the author **Megan McArdle**, Columnist, *Bloomberg View*; with comments by **Brink Lindsey**, Vice President for Research, Cato Institute; moderated by **Dalibor Rohac**, Policy Analyst, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute. 

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Nobody likes to fail, yet failure is a ubiquitous element of our lives. According to Megan McArdle, failing often — and well — is an important source of learning for individuals, organizations, and governments. Although failure is critical in coping with complex environments, our cognitive biases often keep us from drawing the correct lessons and adjusting our behavior. Our psychological aversion to failure can compound its undesirable effects, McArdle argues, and transform failures into catastrophes. Please join us for a discussion of how “failing up” allows us to reinvent ourselves and our institutions.

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This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).