Thoughtful Beliefs

Epic fails

Share This Post

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”yes” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” status=”published” publish_date=”” class=”” id=”” link_color=”” link_hover_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”-24%” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” gradient_start_color=”” gradient_end_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_blend_mode=”none” video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_6″ type=”1_6″ layout=”1_6″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_color=”” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ first=”true” last=”false” element_content=””][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”2_3″ type=”2_3″ layout=”2_3″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_color=”#ffffff” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ first=”false” last=”false” padding_top=”3%” padding_right=”3%” padding_bottom=”3%” padding_left=”3%”][fusion_title title_type=”text” rotation_effect=”bounceIn” display_time=”1200″ highlight_effect=”circle” loop_animation=”off” highlight_width=”9″ highlight_top_margin=”0″ before_text=”” rotation_text=”” highlight_text=”” after_text=”” content_align=”center” size=”1″ font_size=”” animated_font_size=”” line_height=”” letter_spacing=”” text_color=”” animated_text_color=”” highlight_color=”” style_type=”default” sep_color=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” fusion_font_variant_title_font=”” margin_bottom=”2%” margin_top=”2%” fusion_font_family_title_font=”Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”]

Epic Fails

[/fusion_title][fusion_breadcrumbs prefix=”” separator=”” alignment=”center” font_size=”12px” text_color=”” text_hover_color=”” show_categories=”” post_type_archive=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” margin_top=”1%” margin_bottom=”2%” /][fusion_sharing tagline=”SHARE” tagline_color=”#8e8e8e” backgroundcolor=”” title=”” link=”” description=”” icons_boxed=”” icons_boxed_radius=”” color_type=”” icon_colors=”” box_colors=”” tooltip_placement=”” pinterest_image=”” pinterest_image_id=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” /][fusion_title hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” size=”3″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none”]

What requires serious care and attention in life?

[/fusion_title][fusion_text]

See some examples of “epic fails” in the three videos below and learn what makes decisions range from unimportant to very important.

[/fusion_text][fusion_builder_row_inner][fusion_builder_column_inner type=”1_3″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” background_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ type=”1_3″ first=”true” last=”false”][fusion_vimeo id=”145794396″ width=”600″ height=”350″ autoplay=”no” /][/fusion_builder_column_inner][fusion_builder_column_inner type=”1_3″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” background_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ type=”1_3″ first=”false” last=”false”][fusion_vimeo id=”346261630″ width=”600″ height=”350″ autoplay=”no” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” /][/fusion_builder_column_inner][fusion_builder_column_inner type=”1_3″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” background_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ type=”1_3″ first=”false” last=”true”][fusion_vimeo id=”145794630″ width=”600″ height=”350″ autoplay=”no” /][/fusion_builder_column_inner][/fusion_builder_row_inner][fusion_title margin_top=”50px” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” size=”3″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none”]

How do you rank the epic fails?

[/fusion_title][fusion_text]

When giving a presentation, I usually show a couple videos like these and ask the audience to rank what happened on a 1-10 scale, 1 meaning no big deal, far from “epic,” and 10 being truly epic failure. Go ahead and rank the failures shown in the first two videos:

  • Biker Face-plant ______
  • Skiers ______
  • Joel Olsteen’s answer to Larry King _____

Also, if you can, add a couple of your own personal failures, or an example of another time where someone had a significant mistake or failure, and rank those too. And because we are in a ranking mindset, think of the top five most important things in life, or five things that impact you the most:

  1. ___________________
  2. ___________________
  3. ___________________
  4. ___________________
  5. ___________________

I think the term “epic fail” is usually an exaggeration. Unlike the “Moron.com” label in the bike video, I give credit to these people for taking a risk. To mimic a line from Brad Pitt’s character in Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “I wouldn’t want to leave life without any scars.” And, the kid in the face-plant video will heal, maybe with a scar. The skiers, too, will get over their embarrassment and pain in probably a relatively short time. Yet, in comparison, how would you rank the following:

  • Your best friend stole your boy/girlfriend or spouse? ______
  • A person drinks well beyond the legal limit and on the way home runs into the other lane, causing serious permanent injuries to another driver? ______
  • A parent physically and emotional abuses a child though their entire relationship? ______

These new examples provide some perspective. For those who ranked the bike or skier fails high, most would adjust those scores lower now and assign higher numbers to these new examples. Why? The reason why these new examples get higher rankings is the answer to how we know when something is worth caring about and must be given serious attention.

[/fusion_text][fusion_title margin_top=”50px” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” size=”3″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none”]

What makes something worth really caring about and taking seriously?

[/fusion_title][fusion_text]

The first answer: QUALITY. The reason why you were also asked to put down five of the most important things in life is because if one or more of those things are involved, then the quality of the impact goes way up. Many will write down family and/or friends as one of the top five most important things in life, so when a spouse is lost, especially through betrayal of a friend, the quality, or how deeply you are impacted, goes way up.

The second major contributor to raising something to greater levels of importance or impact is QUANTITY. If something has an impact, even if it is not major, but the impact is long lasting or happens over and over, then it can become very serious. Drinking and driving may not seem like a terrible choice at the time, but if it directly causes death or a permanent injury to yourself or others, then the seriousness will be shown not just through high quality (or deepness of impact), but also through high quantity (how often the impact is felt). The loss of a parent to drunk driving, for example, would be felt every day in many different ways by the affected family.

You can also see the impact of quantity when comparing a parent who loses it one day and snaps at a child verses a parent who makes snapping at a child habitual. The choice to engage in constant abusive behavior to one’s child becomes exceedingly serious as the quantity of impact on the child exponentially increases the damage. One wave hitting a rock doesn’t do much, but endless waves can erode the rock away entirely, making the waves much more serious to even solid rock.

Why do so many still make the choice to drink and drive? They are counting on the last major factor in what makes something very serious: PROBABILITY. Your choice of a career comes with high quality and quantity (QQ) of consequences. If you choose the wrong career, you will be impacted at least eight hours every day, which means high quantity of impact, and you may suffer serious stress, loss of opportunity, and loss of money and time invested, meaning significant quality of impact. The probability is 100% that there will be a QQ impact, but how serious of an impact depends on the situation. In order to determine what the probability, or likelihood, is that the impact will be extremely serious, or epically good or bad for you, you need supportive evidence to lead to the most reasonable answer to stand on and use when making decisions, like whether you should leave your current job to pursue this new one.

What about likelihood?

Driving while impaired, on the other hand, can have a very high QQ impact, but, unlike the wrong career choice example, there is not a high probability that if you choose on one occasion to drink and drive you will hurt someone or even get caught. So, although the QQ impact is very high, you also have to factor in the probability, and the probability is low enough to make some people take the risk. In fact, enough people do make such a choice, according to a Center for Disease Control (CDC) study, that someone in the U.S. dies every 51 minutes from an accident involving a driver impaired by alcohol. That doesn’t even count the people seriously injured. I think a good argument can be made that if the QQ impact is seriously high, then even if the probability (P) were a small fraction of a percent, the choice is still serious. And in the case of drinking and driving, whatever inconvenience it may cause and time or money it may waste, making the choice against driving while impaired will be the best for you overall.

[/fusion_text][fusion_title margin_top=”50px” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” size=”3″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none”]

It’s all about return on investment.

[/fusion_title][fusion_text]

It is just common-sense decision making that we do all the time. Money in a house, time in a career, effort in maintaining health, emotion in a goal, passion in a hobby, all of the above in a serious relationship, and how much we invest of ourselves are all based on the level of Quantity, Quality, and Probability (QQP) of the results involved. The higher the QQP value, the more serious, important, impactful, and clearly more deserving of our serious attention a choice becomes.

  • Quality (how substantial or deeply it impacts me)
  • Quantity (how many times or how often it impacts me)
  • Probability (likelihood of impact on me)

[/fusion_text][fusion_text]

So, what about worldview beliefs?

[/fusion_text][fusion_text]

What is the QQP value of beliefs? Do they have serious impact? See the analysis in the next section: What am I building my life on? But first, take a look at the King v. Osteen article below, which discusses the last video and why I would rather have seen Joel Osteen, even if he is a nice guy, do the bike face plant rather than perform as he did in the interview.

[/fusion_text][fusion_button link=” http://thoughtfulbeliefs.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1.12-King-v-Olsteen.pdf” title=”old: /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1.1e-King-v-Olsteen.pdf” target=”_blank” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” color=”red” size=”medium” stretch=”default” icon=”fa-file-pdf-o fas” icon_position=”left” icon_divider=”no” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”1.0″ alignment=”left”]King V. Olsteen[/fusion_button][fusion_button link=”/why-should-i-care/what-am-i-building-my-life-on/” color=”default” size=”medium” target=”_self” icon=”fa-chevron-right fas” icon_position=”right” icon_divider=”no” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”1″ alignment=”left”]What am I building my life on?[/fusion_button][fusion_separator style_type=”none” sep_color=”#ffffff” border_size=”0″ icon=”” icon_size=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” alignment=”center” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” bottom_margin=”2%” /][fusion_text]

References and Citations

1 Dept of Transportation (US), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Traffic SafetyFacts 2013 Data: Alcohol-Impaired Driving. Washington (DC): NHTSA; 2014 [cited 2015 May 18].Available at URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812102.pdf.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_6″ type=”1_6″ layout=”1_6″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” background_type=”single” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_color=”” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_blend_mode=”none” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ first=”false” last=”true” element_content=””][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

More To Explore