Fail Better with David Duchovny
To be human is to fail – period. And not just to fail once, but to fail a lot. As the author Samuel Beckett said: “Fail again. Fail better.” This saying means a lot to me and my family – so much so that my daughter got a tattoo of it. Why are we, and so many others, so deeply concerned by failure? And if it’s something we all do so often, why are we so afraid of it – especially those of us here in win-at-all-costs America? In this podcast, I sit down with successful, thoughtful people like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sean Penn and more to talk about failure – or what they labeled “failure,” but what was really an unparalleled opportunity for growth and revelation. I even want to delve into my own hardest moments, when I wrestled with setbacks, shame, and fear. We’ll still fail again. And again. But maybe if we fail better, we’ll feel better -- and maybe if we can all laugh together in failure, that's a start.
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As someone who knows tech giants like Elon Musk more deeply than most reporters, Kara Swisher doesn’t have a ton of patience for them. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have empathy. Reflecting at this pivotal moment, she’s stripping away the facades of these powerful men to reveal their true characters (typically, cri
While Maggie Wheeler is known by millions as the iconic Janice on ‘Friends’, she has been my real-life friend for even longer. Back in the late 80s, we made our film debuts together, playing former lovers, which is a distinction we shared in real life, even at that time. And we’ve stayed close even as our lives and car
This week, I’ve got some more behind-the-scenes content for you. As you know, at the end of each episode you hear a little snippet of my thoughts from after the interview wrapped up. What you might not know is that I share the full version of those thoughts with our Lemonada Premium subscribers each week. Today, I’m gi
The author of In Praise of Failure, Costica Bradatan, joins me from Romania to share his wisdom on all things lack and loss. We talk about the true meaning of humility, the benefits of clumsiness, and just how broken democracy is — and has been — across time and place. Plus, we discuss quite possibly the biggest failur
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Throughout his long and varied career, Rob Lowe has become an expert at reinventing himself. He left behind his bad-boy image from iconic 80s movies to work on a clever mix of dramatic and comedic TV roles. But I’ve known Rob for a while, and he’s a very layered individual. We look back at how Rob has pursued his passi
