Two Types Of Successure In The Art Of Failure By Malcolm Gladwell

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Choking and Panicking New Yorker author Malcolm Gladwell claims that there are two types of failure: choking and panicking. He explains this in his article, “The Art of Failure,” focusing on real-life examples and their experiences of choking and panicking. Gladwell uses many examples of the two and argues how similar yet different they are. In his article, Gladwell focuses on examples of conventional and paradoxical failure and their similarities. He compares panicking to conventional failure because the person has little experience and has no idea what to do to get them out of their situation. In Gladwell’s opinion, the person’s adrenaline takes over, and they do what their instinct tells them, disregarding the consequences. In contrast, Gladwell compares choking to paradoxical failure because of its unpredictability. According to Gladwell, people overthink their situation and lose their natural well-practiced ability. This means that the person has enough experience and skill to accomplish the task, but choked, leading to paradoxical failure. Gladwell offers many examples of panicking in his article. One of his examples is of two divers underwater and one of them lost her regulator. Only having two weeks of training, she panicked. Her first instinct was to get herself air to breathe, and she grabbed towards her partner’s …show more content…

Both were paths that led to accidental failure, and both led the choker or panicker to be unaware of their actions in their respective situations. In the example of Kennedy’s plane crash, he had two weeks of experience, and as he flew the plane that would meet his doom, he froze, unable to do anything. In the instance of Novotna, she choked when she realized that she was playing against Steffi Graf, “the greatest player of her generation.” Even though Novotna was one point from winning the match, she lost because of what was expected of her to do: beat

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