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The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success Hardcover – February 11, 2014

4.2 out of 5 stars 239

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2014 Penguin hardcover, Megan McArdle. Most new products fail. So do most businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? What separates those who keep treading water from those who harness the lessons from their mistakes? One of our most popular business bloggers, Megan McArdle takes insights from emergency room doctors, kindergarten teachers, bankruptcy judges, and venture capitalists to teach us how to reinvent ourselves in the face of failure. The Up Side of Down is a book that just might change the way you lead your life. - Amazon

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Up Side of Down

“Clever, surprising, fast-paced, and enlightening . . . It’s okay to fail, and as Americans we understand this liberating fact better than, say, Europeans or Asians. . . . Acknowledging failure, McArdle writes in her engrossing book, is a necessary first step in learning from it.”
—Forbes

“A vivid example of how leaning in to low confidence—and the real and imagined failures it can bring about—can turn you around. . . . McArdle weaves together corporate case studies of triumphs and flops, core findings of behavioral economics, and her own bad luck in losing a succession of jobs during the Great Recession. . . . To get where you want to go, McArdle sagely notes, you must first give yourself ‘permission to suck.’ Seeing how this epiphany earns her a freer, failure-embracing growth mindset  is like watching a flower unfold.”
—Elle

“McArdle combines a shrewd knowledge of economics and practical experience with a writing style that every so often segues into comedy monologue. . . . Americans fail a lot, she argues. . . .But good judgment comes from experience. And experience comes from bad judgment—from failures. The key question is how you respond, whether you learn from failure and rebound.”
—The Washington Examiner

“A thought-provoking study of failure—our greatest fear and greatest motivator. McArdle’s lively prose underscores an entertaining roster of tales of risk-taking. . . . Her advice is important not only for individuals, but for wider economic growth; society has to reward experimentation, risk-taking, and working outside our comfort zones. This funny, cheerful look at helping teams overcome failure and find room to experiment will be a boon to business readers.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An illuminating look at the psychology behind rebounding from defeat. . . . McArdle has found a humble, intelligent way of infusing positivity and opportunity into personal losses. . . . Her message is a significant one with both personal and economic impact: There can be no vast success without initial failures, and it’s important to foster a culture of risk-takers who embrace experimentation in working outside of their comfort zones. . . . Sage counsel on how to learn from failure with humor and grace.”
—Kirkus Reviews

The Up Side of Down reveals a forgotten secret to success: failure. This gracefully written, carefully researched book offers a timely and critical message. In a world that’s obsessed with perfection, Megan McArdle shows that our accomplishments depend on whether we can make mistakes and learn from them.”
—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and author of Give and Take

“This is a vibrant book on a vital subject. It’s full of unexpected insights and is a pleasure to read.”
—Tim Harford, author of Adapt and The Undercover Economist and the “Dear Economist” column at the Financial Times

“Megan McArdle has written the seminal book about renewal and American greatness:
The Up Side of Down will teach you to embrace failure and use it to reinvent yourself and your organization.”
—Tyler Cowen, author of Discover Your Inner Economist and The Great Stagnation, co-creator of the economics blog Marginal Revolution

“This is both a surprising and an immensely comforting book. Drawing on academic research, reporting, and not least the failures in her own life, Megan McArdle convincingly demonstrates that avoiding failure isn’t what matters, but how we cope with failure. Sparkling with wit and insight in every chapter,
The Up Side of Down has something for anyone who has ever failed, or lived in fear of failure—in other words, all of us.”
—Greg Ip, author of The Little Book of Economics

“It’s time for defeat, not just victory, to have a thousand fathers. In this wise, thought-provoking, and personal book, Megan McArdle makes the powerful case that we have as much or more to learn from our failures as we do from successes. With relevant case studies from Detroit to Hollywood, she seamlessly weaves together strategic and tactical insights into how to make big decisions right—and learn from the many bad decisions we inevitably make along the way. Essential reading for executives, entrepreneurs, and students of life.”
—Parag Khanna, author of How to Run the World and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute

About the Author

Megan McArdle is a special correspondent for Newsweek/The Daily Beast. A graduate of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, she has been a finance and economics correspondent for The Economist and a business columnist and blogger for The Atlantic. She lives with her husband, Peter, in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking; First Edition (February 11, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 067002614X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670026142
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.14 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 239

About the author

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Megan McArdle
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Megan McArdle is a Washington, DC based writer and a columnist for Bloomberg View, where she covers economics, business, public policy, and the occasional kitchen gadget. Prior to working for Bloomberg, she was employed at The Economist, The Atlantic, and Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and was a Bernard Schwarz fellow at the New America Foundation. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Time, Philanthropy, and Reason, among other places. Ms. McArdle has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She lives in Northeast DC with her husband and dog.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
239 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2024
If you ever wondered why entrepreneurship works in America better than any other place on earth, this book has some nice insights. The path to greatness in any society is paved via failing well in a culture that believes in forgiving and offering fresh starts.
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2014
This is a book about how essential it is for us--as individuals, as businesspeople, and as citizens--to analyze, really look at, the things that don't work, or didn't work . . . in our jobs, our family lives, and in the policies our leaders pursue.

Ms. McArdle does a nice job of distinguishing the mind-set about unsuccessful enterprises here in the U.S. (where having been part of a start-up, even one that no longer exists is a resume-enhancer), versus some other countries (where having seen your business go under can be a badge of shame, or the source of decades-long insolvency).

The book displays the adroit weaving back-and-forth between personal and economy-wide wisdom that one can see in McArdle's columns. A charming book about the truly lifegiving aspects of "creative destruction."
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2018
I'm a big fan of Megan McArdle's columns and articles, so I expected to like this book -- and I did! McArdle writes very well and finds interesting topics that often, but not always, have a political or economic bent. I learned a lot from several of these chapters, particularly the one on new approaches to probation.

The book is marketed as an integrated discussion of how failure can be the foundation to success (hence the title), but actually most of the chapters seem to be rewritten versions of previously published articles and are sometimes only tangentially related to the main theme. This didn't bother me because I hadn't read (or had forgotten!) most of the original articles. But a reader expecting the book to be all new material might be disappointed.

There are few more typos than I'd liked to have seen, and in a couple of places the updating was skipped -- notably when a reference is made to the Bush Administration that seems to imply that he is still in office. But these are nitpicks. If you like McArdle's writing, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this book.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014
This book broaches what most of us don't want to talk about or have part of: failure. But the idea - hence the book's title - is that failure can be a good thing if it is... er... done well. When we do well or okay, there is no real opportunity to grow and learn; it is only when we fail that we have an opportunity to learn about what we don't know and, often, the best time in which to get inventive and try new things. The Upside of Down includes many variations on this theme, including some discussion about how current instructional methods of schooling reward success only and strongly discourage failure, as well as meditations on everything from why complex systems make behavior unavoidable and why our habit of finding someone to blame gets in the way of learning from failure.

The book basically starts with some thoughts akin to those of Nassim Taleb (
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" (Incerto) ). That is: complex systems (systems with a lot of moving parts that need to work in concert with each other) are just more prone to disorder and failure, because it only takes one thing going wrong to throw a wrench in the whole system. And, as Taleb says, error scales up quite well. From there, it depends on how we deal with error when it happens and understanding how AVOIDABLE error can be avoided. Two concepts the author provides here are "groupidity" and "blamestorming." The first of these shows us that people are likely to do stupid things when in groups (where we often do what others are doing while they do what others are doing, etc, for no better reason than it is what others are doing). Second, the author urges us to avoid "blamestorming:" when something goes wrong, we should devote attention to figuring out how to fix it and avoid it in the future, rather than the more comforting habit of finding out who is to blame.

All in all, the author makes her case very indirectly through slow and meandering (very meandering) chapters, her points more implied than stated. The second chapter, for instance, is a lengthy digression on how economists Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson discovered (through economic simulations with undergrads) how bubbles and bursts form in markets from individuals acting wholly rationally. It was quite difficult to see what the point of this chapter was until the very end, where the author discussed that one of the economists' take-aways was that "good" behavior is partly contingent on good cultural norms and social institutions. And even this point only becomes obvious much later in the book where the author starts discussing what kinds of norms and institutions (easy bankruptcy laws coupled with social pressures discouraging bankruptcy) are most conducive to allowing the right kinds of failure.

But the author really is a fantastic writer. Even as a relatively slow reader (I read a lot, but at a slow pace), I found myself finishing this book in a matter of days - the kind of book where I put off sleep to read another chapter. So, even though the author doesn't always tell you where she is going - you often have to read between the lines - I enjoyed the journey immensely. One part self-help book, one part collection of interesting journalistic stories and insights. It is just too bad the book wasn't structured a little better.
10 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2014
Megan McArdle has always impressed me with her writing. She has a talent for looking critically at social issues and dispelling the dogma or knee-jerk thinking too often associated with public policy. So it did not surprise me that I found The Upside of Down so engaging and enlightening. Megan's insights are applicable to so many facets of our lives - parenting, education, careers, public policy (in many areas), financial management, self-analysis - I am hard pressed to think of an audience that would not benefit from reading this book.

Ultimately, Megan makes a compelling case for our society to gain a better awareness of the value of encouraging constructive failure. She does a laudable job of contrasting societal differences between the US and Europe, even providing anthropological context (that in and of itself prompts the ideologue to question basic notions of fairness and justice!). She then shows why the US experience and tradition is better suited to the encouragement of a dynamic and optimistic society.

As I finished The Upside of Down I had a long mental list of friends and family to whom I will recommend it. Well done, Megan! You must have worked very hard and diligently to produce this fine book (notice I compliment your effort, not your natural talent!).
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

readpeat
2.0 out of 5 stars Fragmented
Reviewed in the Netherlands on December 15, 2016
The author shares some nice stories, but no real point is being made, and many loose ends are left. Disappointing, really.
Sandy Philpot
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2016
Interesting book some interesting and thought provoking idea
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars a fine writer of a fine message.
Reviewed in Canada on May 5, 2014
I know her work as a Bloomberg scribbler and was not dissapointed with this book. She's a fine writer with quite a fine message. To hell with golden-CV robots that can do no wrong (or so they claim). This book regards itself with the rest of us, encouraging us to embrace our shortcomings and use them to our advantage.
Nancy Murray
4.0 out of 5 stars We learn when things go wrong, not when the sailing is smooth
Reviewed in Canada on May 17, 2014
Thought provoking book on risk, learning, entrepreneurship. Both in business and in life, doing the same things the same way in a world in which change is the only constant is not great strategy. This book analyzes some of the research as to the relationship among risk, failing well, and innovation are related.
Boring
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book and collide with wisdom.
Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2014
Seems to succeed one must postpone gratification and deal with suffering. This book deals with tough subjects and a glimpse at choosing paths that most would avoid as they are not popular or easy.