Imagine you’re listening to someone giving a speech. The speaker starts to get visibly nervous, their voice cracks, and they start fumbling their words. The person turns red in the face, looks around, and sees people laughing with some of them even recording it on their phones.

 

Or how about that one coworker that no one can stand? Let’s say they take on a big project at work and it doesn’t go well, and the project fails. A lot of times, people will silently (or not so silently) cheer for their failure and laugh at that person. It might seem like justice is being served if the person is a real *sshole, but if you’re one of the people who were happy about it, it presents a whole new problem.

 

That problem is you.

 

I don’t need to tell you how difficult life can be. We all face difficulties and problems. And since no one is perfect, we all have failures too. People are flawed. We mess up, and we let ourselves and others down sometimes. We all try to learn from our own failures and grow from them, but shouldn’t we be keeping our eyes and ears open to learn from other’s mistakes as well?

 

We should. Because that is how people gain wisdom.

 

When we laugh at other people’s failures, we’re really just exposing our own weakness and insecurity. Those that like to make fun of other’s failures are trying to make themselves feel better as a way to deal with their own fear of failure.

 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why I’m big on self-confidence. Someone who is confident and secure is also respectful and humble. A confident and secure person is also helpful and supportive. If you try something new and fail at it, wouldn’t it be so much better to hear someone say, “Let’s talk about what happened and figure out what went wrong.”

 

 

When it comes to getting enjoyment out of other’s failures, you might be wondering where this mindset comes from and why it’s so common?

It’s a complex answer that has a different meaning for everyone, but the word you’re looking for is schadenfreude. It’s a concept that has been around and studied for a long time.

 

If this is your first time hearing about it, schadenfreude is a negative emotion that is defined as the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, or humiliation of other people.

 

Do you really want that word to be included in how people describe you?

 

Psychologists have found the three main traits that cause this mindset – aggression, rivalry, and justice (perceived). Studies have shown that people are more likely to laugh at someone who fails because we see them as a threat, a competitor, or perceive them as a bad person. You may even have occasional dark thoughts that include wishing for others to fail or suffer in some way, and while those thoughts are common, they are not okay.

 

Like I’ve said, laughing at other’s failures is not a mature way of coping with our own insecurities or frustrations. It’s a sign of weakness, not strength. The strong ones are the ones who reach out and help…not secretly celebrate.

 

It doesn’t end there though.

There are different intensity levels to schadenfreude. In fact, there is a test that can be administered to rate your levels. What’s frightening is that people who score high on this test also score higher on the Dark Triad of personality traits (another widely studied topic). These traits include Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

 

Again, these are not words that you want associated with your name.

 

So, the next time you feel tempted to laugh or cheer when someone fails, that is the precise moment you need to catch yourself and think twice. Practice mindfulness by asking yourself why you’re doing it. Take inventory of your feelings. Are you feeling angry or jealous of that person? Are you doing it because of your own fears and insecurities?

 

Look, we are all on a journey to understand ourselves, but the only way to succeed in that journey is to be honest and self-aware.

 

And in that spirit of self-awareness and honesty, this is where I would love to hear from all of you. Just because there aren’t a lot of positive things being talked about in the news, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t good all around us.

 

Have you ever helped someone who failed? I want to hear about it!

 

Have you ever been helped by someone who didn’t laugh at your failure? I want to know how it made you feel!

 

We can learn to change our perspective (and help others do the same) by learning from other people’s experiences as much as our own.

 

Before I became the man I am today, I suffered from this too, but through meditation and mindfulness (and a lot of growth by learning through failure) I was able to overcome emotions like this which is why I’m talking about it today. You think being an entrepreneur is easy? It’s a process that is filled with failures when you first start out. I don’t know what jobs all of you have, but I’m sure they all have difficult aspects to them.

 

Bottom line is that it’s easy to fail, but it’s even easier to laugh at those who fail.

 

But people I associate with don’t take the easy way out. We do the right things, the right way, and encourage and support others to do the same. 

 

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