Search the Site

Search Results for: failure is your friend

Episode 114

Is Perfectionism Ruining Your Life?

Psychologist Thomas Curran argues that perfectionism isn’t about high standards — it’s about never being enough. He explains how the drive to be perfect is harming education, the economy, and…

How Can We Measure Innovation? A Freakonomics Quorum

…Company” in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. “Embracing failure … brings you dangerously close to failure’s more deadly cousin, flailing.” “It’s such a fine line between stupid…



Episode 202

How Many Doctors Does It Take to Start a Healthcare Revolution?

The practice of medicine has been subsumed by the business of medicine. This is great news for healthcare shareholders — and bad news for pretty much everyone else.

Episode 134

Government Employees Gone Wild

The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures catalogs the fiscal, sexual, and mental lapses of federal workers — all with an eye toward preventing the next big mistake….

Episode 75

How Do You Deal With Intrusive Thoughts?

Also: how much does confidence really matter?…

Episode 171

Where Is the Line Between Exaggeration and Lying?

Why do we use “literally” figuratively? Does conveying an “emotional truth” justify making things up? And are Angela’s kids really starving or just hungry?…

Episode 117

What’s Wrong With Holding a Grudge?

How do you let go of resentment? Do apologies even work? And what grievances have Stephen and Angela been nursing for years?…

Episode 11

Why Do So Many Donated Kidneys End Up in the Trash?

Every year, thousands of people in the U.S. die while they’re waiting for a new kidney, yet thousands of available organs get thrown away. Bapu talks to a kidney doctor…

Episode 111

Can a Moonshot Approach to Mental Health Work?

Obi Felten used to launch projects for X, Google’s innovation lab, but she’s now tackling mental health. She explains why Steve’s dream job was soul-destroying for her, and how peer…

Episode 494

Why Do Most Ideas Fail to Scale?

In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution….

An Economist's Tipping Strategy

…My friend agreed that the server had made these errors (and indeed, the sever himself acknowledged that the service was subpar), Nevertheless, my friend still wanted us to leave a…



Episode 39

Aicha Evans Wants You to Take Your Eyes Off the Road

She’s the C.E.O. of Zoox, an autonomous vehicle company. Steve asks Aicha about the big promises the A.V. industry hasn’t yet delivered — and the radical bet Zoox is making…

Episode 164

Do You Have Impostor Syndrome?

Does anyone really know what they’re doing? How do we reward the competent and not the confident? And what’s wrong with using TikTok for research?…

Episode 182

Is It Good or Bad to Keep Secrets?

Should you shout your sins from the rooftops? How many skeletons are in the average person’s closet? And what has Angela been hiding?…

Episode 53

What’s the Secret to Making a Great Prediction?

Also: How do you recover from a bad day?…

Episode 95

What’s So Bad About Denial?

Can denial be a healthy way of dealing with the death of a loved one? What do the five stages of grief misrepresent about mourning? And why does Angie cover…

Episode 159

How Much Personal Space Do You Need?

How do you deal with a close talker? Is Angela drinking too much water? And why can’t Mike keep his phone out of his bedroom?

Episode 556

A.I. Is Changing Everything. Does That Include You?

For all the speculation about the future, A.I. tools can be useful right now. Adam Davidson discovers what they can help us do, how we can get the most from…

Episode 43

Arne Duncan Says All Kids Deserve a Chance — and Criminals Deserve a Second One

Former U.S. Secretary of Education, 3×3 basketball champion, and leader of an anti-gun violence organization are all on Arne’s resume. He’s also Steve’s neighbor. The two talk about teachers caught…

The Economic Value of Popularity

It probably seems obvious to most people that being likeable and having good friends could be valuable in life. Since most economists are neither likeable nor have good friends, it…



Anybody Need a Best Friend?

This guy is offering to be your best friend, for a price, via eBay. He lives in New York City and calls himself Rent-a-Pal: “The lucky Winning Bidder and RENTAPAL…



Episode 173

How Important Is Your Choice of Words?

What happens when three psychologists walk into a magic show? What’s Angela’s problem with the word “talent”? And why does LeBron James refer to himself in the third person?…

Friend Turnover

…604 people about their friends and again seven years later, and found that only 48 percent of people’s original friends were still part of their network after that time period….



EXTRA

Mr. Feynman Takes a Trip — But Doesn’t Fall

A wide-open conversation with three women who guided Richard Feynman through some big adventures at the Esalen Institute. (Part of our Feynman series.)…

Episode 152

What’s the Worst Kind of Regret?

Is it worse to regret something you’ve done, or something you haven’t done? What’s the upside of rejection? And which great American short-story writer convinced Angela to quit driving?…

Episode 269

Bad Medicine, Part 2: (Drug) Trials and Tribulations (Replay)

How do so many ineffective and even dangerous drugs make it to the market? One reason is that clinical trials are often run on “dream patients” who aren’t representative of…

PLUS

The Museum of Failure

The psychologist Samuel West was sick of stories about success, so he founded a museum dedicated to failure. We discuss how he did it, what he hopes visitors will learn,…

This episode is part of the Freakonomics Radio Plus membership program. Members get weekly bonus episodes of Freakonomics Radio and every Freakonomics Radio Network show without ads.

Learn More

Episode 7

What Happens to Patients When Thousands of Cardiologists Leave Town?

This week, Bapu Jena presents some hot-off-the-presses research exploring the relationship between how many patients a doctor sees, and how well those patients do. Plus, the surprising impact of annual…

On the Failure of Macroeconomists

…policy, and almost no one provides similar subsidies for fiscal research. Whatever the reason, the failure of macroeconomists to speak to this critical policy issue undermines our claim to relevance….



Episode 269

Bad Medicine, Part 2: (Drug) Trials and Tribulations

How do so many ineffective and even dangerous drugs make it to market? One reason is that clinical trials are often run on “dream patients” who aren’t representative of a…