Latest / Randy Unscripted / Failure is Feedback. And Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions. - NaPodPoMo 2025 #13

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Failure is Feedback. And Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions. - NaPodPoMo 2025 #13 · Randy Unscripted

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  Randy Black: Randy Black.
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  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Black.
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  Black. He's a troublemaker.
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  Welcome back to Randy Unscripted.
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  I'm Randy Black, and this episode is part of my napod promo series. That's national podcast post month where I'm challenging myself to create a new episode every single day in November.
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  30 episodes
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  in thirty days. Lots of podcasters out there taking part. Go out, search for napod po m o, n a p o d p o m o, and see what you can find to go along with it. I wanna kick this episode off, with a little clip from one of my other podcasts called shooting it straight, and it goes like this. in thirty days. Lots of podcasters out there taking part. Go out, search for napod po m o, n a p o d p o m o, and see what you can find to go along with it. I wanna kick this episode off, with a little clip from one of my other podcasts called shooting it straight, and it goes like this. And you can't have really great success
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  Unknown: without some form of or many forms of failure. Do remember my fortune cookie? Oh, yeah. Failure is feedback, and feedback is the breakfast of champions. That's right. That's exactly right. But see, in today's world,
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  see, in the old school world, the dinosaur world where I grew up,
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  that's how people learn. In today's world, it's kind of opposite
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  because kids think failure
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  is like, oh my gosh. They don't know you're gonna learn from it. Everything's based like it.
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  Randy Black: This episode started several years ago in one of the most unexpected places you could imagine. It was a Chinese restaurant.
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  I just finished eating a plate of General Tso's chicken, one of my absolute favorites.
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  And as the meal wraps up, the server
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  brings out the fortune cookies along with the check.
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  You know, those little fortune cookies, they're folded. They usually have something silly inside like, you will take a pleasant journey soon or your lucky numbers are.
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  But this one,
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  this one stopped me in my tracks.
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  As you just heard in the clip, it said,
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  failure is feedback,
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  and feedback
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  is the breakfast of champions.
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  I still have a picture
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  of that fortune cookie saved on my phone, and I'll include it in the show notes for this episode.
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  You can actually even go to Randall Black dot com where this podcast is hosted, and it's on the main page in the hero section.
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  Something about this fortune cookie
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  struck me
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  as being so powerful,
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  maybe even
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  extremely profound.
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  And in in in just those few short little words,
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  it changed things for me.
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  You see, most of us, we're taught from a young age to fear failure.
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  We're taught to avoid mistakes.
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  We're taught to get it right the first time.
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  But life doesn't really work that way, does it?
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  As an educator and as someone who works with technology,
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  I've seen time and time again
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  that the best learning doesn't happen
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  when everything goes perfectly.
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  It happens when something breaks,
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  when we mess up, when things don't go as planned,
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  because that's when we stop and ask,
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  okay.
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  What happened here?
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  That moment,
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  that reflection,
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  that's feedback.
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  And that feedback
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  is exactly what helps us grow.
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  Think about the athletes
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  who practice day after day.
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  They fail
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  constantly,
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  missed shots,
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  dropped passes,
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  false starts,
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  but they also have coaches
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  giving them constant feedback, pointing out what worked,
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  what didn't,
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  and how to adjust.
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  That's why this fortune
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  says
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  feedback is the breakfast of champions.
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  It's nourishment.
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  It's fuel.
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  It gives us what we need to become better
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  than what we were yesterday.
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  But here's the thing.
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  Champions
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  don't just receive feedback.
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  They embrace it.
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  They even go looking for it
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  because they know
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  every failure
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  is simply data.
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  It's a clue about how to improve for the next time.
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  When I think about this in my own life, whether it's teaching a lesson that didn't land with the with the students,
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  recording a podcast that
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  the flow
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  didn't go the way I hoped,
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  or working through a project that just goes sideways and loses focus.
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  Each of those moments have offered
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  valuable feedback.
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  The same goes for my work in educational technology. Sometimes a new system rollout
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  does not go as planned
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  or a tool
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  that I thought and our team had thought would make things easier ends up creating
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  more confusion than it does clarity.
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  But even then, those moments show me what needs to change.
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  They help me understand the real needs of the teachers and the students and how I can do better next time.
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  It's not always fun.
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  In fact,
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  most of the time it stings. It hurts.
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  But if I could look at it objectively,
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  step back, and say, what can I learn from this?
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  Then
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  that that so called failure
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  turns into a stepping stone.
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  So maybe failure isn't the opposite of success after all.
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  Maybe it's just
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  part of the same road as you heard Jim talk about in that clip.
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  So today,
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  I wanna leave you with this very simple thought.
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  Don't fear failure.
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  Feed on it.
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  Let it sharpen you.
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  Let it strengthen you,
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  and let it guide you toward where you are meant to go.
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  Remember that little fortune,
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  failure is feedback,
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  and feedback is the breakfast of champions.
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  So grab your plate and dig in.
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  This has been another episode of Randy unscripted as part of my napod promo series for national podcast post month. Thank you for joining me on this Jersey journey
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  one episode,
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  one day, one reflection at a time. And until next time,
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  keep learning,
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  stay curious,
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  and I'll catch you the next time that I'm unscripted.
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  Failure is feedback, and feedback is the breakfast of champions.