Treat Life as an Experiment for Resilience and Happiness

Key Quotes

"I think something that's helped me a lot in life is like valuable frameworks especially when looking at challenges and when looking at failure like viewing failure in a way that it's it's doesn't mean you are a failure but you can it almost flips it to where it's exciting and like that approach to problems and challenges seeing them as like exciting opportunities really is a framework thing that that i've found has just been an incredible help in my life."

Mark Rober explains that viewing challenges and failures through the lens of a framework can transform them from personal shortcomings into exciting opportunities. This perspective shift, rooted in his engineering background, helps him approach problems with a more positive and productive mindset.

"You just have to evoke a visceral response in other words has to make them laugh they have to you know feel excited they just have to feel something right for something to be remarkable it has to be you have to be able to be remarked about and so you don't finish you don't share a video you don't finish watching so if you can just make them feel something then they are way more likely to actually take action and share it."

Mark Rober highlights the importance of creating an emotional connection with an audience to make content memorable and shareable. He suggests that evoking a strong emotional response, whether through humor or excitement, is key to making something "remarkable" and encouraging people to engage with and spread it.

"The biggest downside especially as an engineer i get this is like is to focus on the facts let's say you're selling a thing it's like well you know my processor has 20 more gigahertz people don't care it's just a spec sheet right they want to know how this will make them feel so i think part of it is like empathizing with the other person you're talking to and putting yourself in their shoes and understanding from their perspective what would feel meaningful to them."

Mark Rober advises against solely relying on factual data when communicating, especially in an engineering context. He emphasizes the need to empathize with the audience, understand their perspective, and focus on how a product or idea will make them feel, rather than just listing technical specifications.

"I call this the super mario effect okay in any video game there's an objective or a goal like you have to rescue the princess from the the castle or get a certain amount of points but there's obstacles in that way okay there might be pits there might be bad guys and if you die you go back to the beginning and you just keep trying and over time you get better and better and you learn to avoid the obstacles better and better."

Mark Rober introduces the "Super Mario Effect" to reframe failure as a natural part of the learning process, similar to playing a video game. He explains that in games, players encounter obstacles and setbacks but persist, learning from each failure to eventually achieve their goal, a mindset he believes is applicable to life.

"Make your goal to fail what do you mean make your goal to fail i just i just went through this myself mel where it's like i have i like to play chess occasionally and i found like i wasn't playing chess because i felt like if i lost somehow i would internalize it something about me this is like playing online and i'm like what am i doing so i made a goal that i want to lose 10 games."

Mark Rober shares a strategy for overcoming the fear of failure by intentionally setting a goal to fail. He illustrates this with his personal experience playing chess, where he aimed to lose a set number of games to desensitize himself to the negative feelings associated with losing and to encourage more practice.

"In engineering we call it first principles approach like if you're trying to go to mars start from a very first principle what are the basic fundamentals that you need to know how much energy do you need to get there like what are the basic building blocks and i think for happiness there's some basic building blocks that intuitively i've really tried to maintain as life has gotten crazier and that comes down to like relationships and like living according to what my personal values are right being value driven and like having a goal of what is my impact in this world and what is the reason i'm here."

Mark Rober applies an engineering "first principles approach" to understanding happiness, suggesting it is built on fundamental elements. He identifies relationships, living by personal values, and having a clear sense of one's impact and purpose as the core building blocks for genuine happiness.