[Music]
[Applause]
winning is better than losing I think
most people would agree with that
statement what I’m here to tell you
about today is that success is better
than winning even if you have to lose to
achieve it before starting my talk
though I want to tell you three things
about myself number one I am highly
competitive I hate to lose and I love
winning number two I love talking about
physics
I love teaching physics whether it’s the
physics of football whether it’s the
physics of Star Wars aliens whatever it
might be
I even love doing the physics of block
sliding down inclined planes which is
the number one place we lose potential
physics majors number three I actually
despite loving competition loving to win
loving teaching I hate giving grades and
I really really hate failing students
and it is the space of grades where at
the University I believe success in
winning come together in an interesting
fashion for myself one of those
experiences was when I applied to
graduate school now I decided to do what
everybody should do and apply to the
best graduate schools and physics around
so I applied to all of them and some of
them in fact essentially all of them
rejected me some of them wanted me so
badly well actually no they didn’t they
decided Michael we really don’t want you
just to make sure we’re going to send
you three rejection letters so I applied
once and Stanford rejected me three
times Berkeley they were you know
thinking waffling a little they only
sent me two rejection letters those are
true stories but you look at that those
were losses from one particular position
and yet Here I am I would argue at least
somewhat of a success I’m a vice provost
I’m a professor of physics at UC Irvine
one of the best
universities in the entire world so
where did that success come from display
despite a major loss well if we’re going
to get there we need to think about the
difference between winning and success
now winning I think we all understand
particularly from sports winning there
can only be one you have a competition
it’s a zero-sum game there’s a single
winner we’re familiar maybe in the
Olympics where you actually give out
three metals gold silver bronze this is
a picture of my brother from the Special
Olympics with his gold medals he was a
winner he’s also very successful to
different things but even in the
Olympics there’s only one gold medalist
one winner now people who sometimes get
uneasy with this this idea of winning
and so we’ve invented the participation
medal and that’s particularly strong in
youth sports and even there we get a
little nervous like that doesn’t seem
quite right we just give you a medal or
a trophy just for participating and at
our core I think we have a good instinct
participation is not enough you need a
goal now often in youth sports the goal
is having fun which is a great goal most
of my life that is my goal if I have fun
I’ve been successful but we really
understand success is when you’ve
achieved a goal and it’s very different
than winning and when you think about
success you realize there’s an unlimited
amount of success out there winning
there can only be one but with success
when you think about your goal and you
think about how to work at it and how to
achieve that anyone and everyone can
achieve that goal of success I really
wanted to be able to explain to you in
clear terms this difference between
winning and success and I was thinking
how can I do that and I realized let’s
think about being chased by a bear so we
all know where many of us have heard
that if you’re being chased by a bear so
I’m gonna be chased by a bear I don’t
actually have to be faster than the bear
I just have to be faster than you makes
sense
but I’ve turned what should be about
success into something about winning
I’ve made getting away from the bear
which is success about winning a race
with you and in doing that I may have
made a critical error because this bear
may be pretty smart
it may just knock you over and out and
then keep chasing me I’ve already
admitted to being slower than the bear
that won’t lead to success on my part
the bear may just not like slow people
and may ignore you and come right after
me again I’m not very successful I won
my race with you but lost with the bear
now if I’m clever
maybe I pay attention maybe there’s a
cabin nearby that the bear can’t get
into can’t work doorknobs I can but it’s
just far enough away that the bear would
catch me anyway but if I work with you
and we work together as a team we can
fool the bear trick it use our skills
get to the cabin and both be successful
I didn’t have to win a race with you and
notice a key element came in that’s
often there in success teamwork when we
talk about winners we tend to focus on
the person who won and there’s always a
team behind them and that often gets
overlooked true success usually comes
with that teamwork there’s another
aspect of success that comes from losing
that I want to discuss and for that we
have to go to the classic Star Wars
movie now as they said I like to talk
physics I like to talk physics of Star
Wars here we’re going to talk winning
success and losing I’ve been told there
may be a few people in the audience who
do not know who obi-wan Kenobi and Darth
Vader are it’s unlikely but just in case
brief recap obi-wan the master trained
Anakin Skywalker things didn’t go very
well
became Darth Vader Darth Vader in black
is the bad guy in the movie they meet
obi-wan is still the master
they have a major lightsaber battle we
know Obi one can still win despite some
gray in the beard that’s not a problem
but he chooses to lose and even warns
Darth Vader right my loss here I’m gonna
come back stronger and greater than you
can ever imagine now some of us are
thinking okay that’s familiar in games
of strategy we often take a strategic
loss to get a win later on but I would
argue there’s more than that go
here obi-wan recognized that often the
paths to success involves navigating
losses and important in clever ways what
does this mean for the university when
I’m a vice provost of teaching and
learning when you think about a
university we are we have a slight
danger when it comes to winning versus
success because at our core were about
success we’re about teaching and helping
students who will then graduate and go
on and be successful and impact society
and make it even more successful but the
nature of giving grades leads to a
mentality of ranking and the ranking
mentality leads to a mentality of
winners and losers and that zero-sum
game both as universities if we get
caught up in the rankings of who we are
and whether we’re better and for
individuals and students and this has
two important implications both at what
I would call the input level and the
output level so input is getting
students to the University with my own
kids I really wanted them to focus not
on this idea of getting into the best
school by rankings or worried about
being the best student by rankings but
matching themselves to the school that
would maximize their success what does
this mean it means well if you don’t
like big schools find a small school
decide whether you’d rather be in a city
or in the country or in a suburb make
sure they have majors that you’re
interested in look at the whole school
and if you do that you can find a place
where you going to be happy and being
happy is one of the first steps to being
successful if you’re totally unhappy
it’s very hard to be successful but the
other piece of matching make sure you’re
challenged find a school is going to
challenge you because if you’re not
going to be challenged you’re not going
to grow so this idea of matching becomes
key and that’s something we have to
figure out as a society how to transform
so that we’re not just about the best
and who is the best in ranking when we
do college admissions the other place
where we have to think about this is on
the output side we send students out to
be successful and yet our system like
most systems of winning is designed
around control
old tests controlled essays controlled
assessments that don’t necessarily match
perfectly the open conditions that
students will face after they graduate
and because of these controlled natures
they look a little more like sports and
games we’re winning might be more
relevant and we do things like we report
the average GPA of a student well think
about this for a moment
you have the straight-a student nothing
wrong with being a straight-a student so
if any of you are in the audience I’m
not making fun of you but the straight-a
student is an interesting person they’ve
come in they got A’s right away they get
a’s the whole way through as an employer
looking at that student i don’t
necessarily have a full picture of them
i don’t know if they’ve been challenged
i don’t know what will happen if they
get challenged now imagine the student
comes in and starts out with c’s but
manages through their 4 year or 5 year
or 3 year career here to end up with a’s
they’ve proven they can master something
they proven they can face difficult
situations they can look inside
themselves figure out what they need to
do they can face an open question how do
I get from where I am now to something
bigger and better and overcome it so as
a potential employer that’s someone I
know has certain skills and mindsets and
work ethics and yet as a university we
tend to report an average GPA and we
think in terms of winning and ranking
and the straight-a student comes out
higher than the student that had season
then A’s so these are the sort of
questions we need to ask ourselves as a
university as we move forward as we
focus on success and not necessarily
winning so how do we know the difference
between winning and success I think
winning is the obvious one we’ve already
talked about it you have rules and games
and somebody wins success I would
recommend you ask yourself three
questions the first question let’s
return to our participation medal
the first key question is did you
participate appropriately did you
participate with the right goals in mind
did you really engage so for a student
you might think you’re participating if
you show up to class but if you’re
watching YouTube on your computer you’re
not participating unless it’s a YouTube
video of me now if you are participating
in engaging that’s the first step to
success
the second thing goals make sure your
goals are correct
make sure you’ve identified appropriate
and reasonable goals think about it
again from the student perspective if
you’re going to a research competition
and you’re going to be pitching some
research and competing it might look
like the goal is winning now winning
that competition is great it would be
wonderful to do it but only one person
wins you can all be successful because
what it’s really about is learning how
to answer those questions be grilled on
your research think on your feet so when
you’re in an interview situation for
your first job you get that job that’s
what the right goal is and that’s
success and the third one make sure you
have your fans still now why do I say
that why do I suddenly talk about fans
well let’s think for a moment about
those sports franchises that never win
you know I’ll know who they are I’m not
gonna point fingers okay these sport
franchises that never win have some of
the most loyal fans I’ve ever seen in my
life often more loyal than the teams
that win and as these loyal fans that
make them successful they may not win a
lot of championships but they still get
money to pay their players to play their
staff to have their stadium and their
fans still enjoy going to the games so
it’s the fans that can bring success who
are your fans they’re your mentors their
professors your bosses your coaches your
friends your family the people who help
you get to success so how does this work
in the university these three questions
well I think at UCI we actually do quite
well we’re doing very well focused on
student success but that question too is
the key one do we have our right goals
in front of us because at the end of the
day we are about graduating students who
have skills like critical thinking
complex problem-solving working in
diverse teams being independent learners
great communicators ethical decision
makers the skills that are critical if
democracy is going to be successful for
6sy Society is going to be successful if
our students are going to be successful
those are the skills we need to impart
and we need to stay focused on that as a
university for me in my own life my
obi-wan kenobe moment where I lost was a
key turning point and I had to ask
myself those three questions did I
participate appropriately luckily I had
because I had applied to a safety school
so when all the top schools rejected me
I still had a grad school to go to did I
have the appropriate goals initially no
initially it was just getting to the
best school what I didn’t know was I got
into UC Santa Barbara and the type of
research being done there was different
it was new it was not what was being
done at the other schools it’s what I
actually ended up in and was that first
step to my successful career so I
actually needed that one
I needed that a little bit better what
about my fans well I had my family and
friends that helped me get through three
rejection letters for one application
but more importantly I had professors
and mentors who came to me asked me
where I was going they knew this fact
about Santa Barbara that it matched me
better and having that information and
getting it at that moment gave me the
confidence that okay this is going to
work out this is the right place to go
so for you how does this work out in
your life when you have that moment of
loss maybe it’s just a date gone bad
maybe it’s a pitch competition and go
well maybe as a student it’s failing a
test failing the class ask yourself
these three questions question one did I
participate appropriately that can be
anything from did you challenge yourself
but did you have a safety net did you
get involved did you engage question two
do you have the right goals are you
focused on the right things in the event
or whatever is going on with the loss
most importantly question three where
are your fans you still have your fans
engage them get that support and move on
to the next step if you ask yourself
these three questions you too can turn a
loss into success which is much better
than winning thank you [Applause]
[Applause]
winning is better than losing I think
most people would agree with that
statement what I’m here to tell you
about today is that success is better
than winning even if you have to lose to
achieve it before starting my talk
though I want to tell you three things
about myself number one I am highly
competitive I hate to lose and I love
winning number two I love talking about
physics
I love teaching physics whether it’s the
physics of football whether it’s the
physics of Star Wars aliens whatever it
might be
I even love doing the physics of block
sliding down inclined planes which is
the number one place we lose potential
physics majors number three I actually
despite loving competition loving to win
loving teaching I hate giving grades and
I really really hate failing students
and it is the space of grades where at
the University I believe success in
winning come together in an interesting
fashion for myself one of those
experiences was when I applied to
graduate school now I decided to do what
everybody should do and apply to the
best graduate schools and physics around
so I applied to all of them and some of
them in fact essentially all of them
rejected me some of them wanted me so
badly well actually no they didn’t they
decided Michael we really don’t want you
just to make sure we’re going to send
you three rejection letters so I applied
once and Stanford rejected me three
times Berkeley they were you know
thinking waffling a little they only
sent me two rejection letters those are
true stories but you look at that those
were losses from one particular position
and yet Here I am I would argue at least
somewhat of a success I’m a vice provost
I’m a professor of physics at UC Irvine
one of the best
universities in the entire world so
where did that success come from display
despite a major loss well if we’re going
to get there we need to think about the
difference between winning and success
now winning I think we all understand
particularly from sports winning there
can only be one you have a competition
it’s a zero-sum game there’s a single
winner we’re familiar maybe in the
Olympics where you actually give out
three metals gold silver bronze this is
a picture of my brother from the Special
Olympics with his gold medals he was a
winner he’s also very successful to
different things but even in the
Olympics there’s only one gold medalist
one winner now people who sometimes get
uneasy with this this idea of winning
and so we’ve invented the participation
medal and that’s particularly strong in
youth sports and even there we get a
little nervous like that doesn’t seem
quite right we just give you a medal or
a trophy just for participating and at
our core I think we have a good instinct
participation is not enough you need a
goal now often in youth sports the goal
is having fun which is a great goal most
of my life that is my goal if I have fun
I’ve been successful but we really
understand success is when you’ve
achieved a goal and it’s very different
than winning and when you think about
success you realize there’s an unlimited
amount of success out there winning
there can only be one but with success
when you think about your goal and you
think about how to work at it and how to
achieve that anyone and everyone can
achieve that goal of success I really
wanted to be able to explain to you in
clear terms this difference between
winning and success and I was thinking
how can I do that and I realized let’s
think about being chased by a bear so we
all know where many of us have heard
that if you’re being chased by a bear so
I’m gonna be chased by a bear I don’t
actually have to be faster than the bear
I just have to be faster than you makes
sense
but I’ve turned what should be about
success into something about winning
I’ve made getting away from the bear
which is success about winning a race
with you and in doing that I may have
made a critical error because this bear
may be pretty smart
it may just knock you over and out and
then keep chasing me I’ve already
admitted to being slower than the bear
that won’t lead to success on my part
the bear may just not like slow people
and may ignore you and come right after
me again I’m not very successful I won
my race with you but lost with the bear
now if I’m clever
maybe I pay attention maybe there’s a
cabin nearby that the bear can’t get
into can’t work doorknobs I can but it’s
just far enough away that the bear would
catch me anyway but if I work with you
and we work together as a team we can
fool the bear trick it use our skills
get to the cabin and both be successful
I didn’t have to win a race with you and
notice a key element came in that’s
often there in success teamwork when we
talk about winners we tend to focus on
the person who won and there’s always a
team behind them and that often gets
overlooked true success usually comes
with that teamwork there’s another
aspect of success that comes from losing
that I want to discuss and for that we
have to go to the classic Star Wars
movie now as they said I like to talk
physics I like to talk physics of Star
Wars here we’re going to talk winning
success and losing I’ve been told there
may be a few people in the audience who
do not know who obi-wan Kenobi and Darth
Vader are it’s unlikely but just in case
brief recap obi-wan the master trained
Anakin Skywalker things didn’t go very
well
became Darth Vader Darth Vader in black
is the bad guy in the movie they meet
obi-wan is still the master
they have a major lightsaber battle we
know Obi one can still win despite some
gray in the beard that’s not a problem
but he chooses to lose and even warns
Darth Vader right my loss here I’m gonna
come back stronger and greater than you
can ever imagine now some of us are
thinking okay that’s familiar in games
of strategy we often take a strategic
loss to get a win later on but I would
argue there’s more than that go
here obi-wan recognized that often the
paths to success involves navigating
losses and important in clever ways what
does this mean for the university when
I’m a vice provost of teaching and
learning when you think about a
university we are we have a slight
danger when it comes to winning versus
success because at our core were about
success we’re about teaching and helping
students who will then graduate and go
on and be successful and impact society
and make it even more successful but the
nature of giving grades leads to a
mentality of ranking and the ranking
mentality leads to a mentality of
winners and losers and that zero-sum
game both as universities if we get
caught up in the rankings of who we are
and whether we’re better and for
individuals and students and this has
two important implications both at what
I would call the input level and the
output level so input is getting
students to the University with my own
kids I really wanted them to focus not
on this idea of getting into the best
school by rankings or worried about
being the best student by rankings but
matching themselves to the school that
would maximize their success what does
this mean it means well if you don’t
like big schools find a small school
decide whether you’d rather be in a city
or in the country or in a suburb make
sure they have majors that you’re
interested in look at the whole school
and if you do that you can find a place
where you going to be happy and being
happy is one of the first steps to being
successful if you’re totally unhappy
it’s very hard to be successful but the
other piece of matching make sure you’re
challenged find a school is going to
challenge you because if you’re not
going to be challenged you’re not going
to grow so this idea of matching becomes
key and that’s something we have to
figure out as a society how to transform
so that we’re not just about the best
and who is the best in ranking when we
do college admissions the other place
where we have to think about this is on
the output side we send students out to
be successful and yet our system like
most systems of winning is designed
around control
old tests controlled essays controlled
assessments that don’t necessarily match
perfectly the open conditions that
students will face after they graduate
and because of these controlled natures
they look a little more like sports and
games we’re winning might be more
relevant and we do things like we report
the average GPA of a student well think
about this for a moment
you have the straight-a student nothing
wrong with being a straight-a student so
if any of you are in the audience I’m
not making fun of you but the straight-a
student is an interesting person they’ve
come in they got A’s right away they get
a’s the whole way through as an employer
looking at that student i don’t
necessarily have a full picture of them
i don’t know if they’ve been challenged
i don’t know what will happen if they
get challenged now imagine the student
comes in and starts out with c’s but
manages through their 4 year or 5 year
or 3 year career here to end up with a’s
they’ve proven they can master something
they proven they can face difficult
situations they can look inside
themselves figure out what they need to
do they can face an open question how do
I get from where I am now to something
bigger and better and overcome it so as
a potential employer that’s someone I
know has certain skills and mindsets and
work ethics and yet as a university we
tend to report an average GPA and we
think in terms of winning and ranking
and the straight-a student comes out
higher than the student that had season
then A’s so these are the sort of
questions we need to ask ourselves as a
university as we move forward as we
focus on success and not necessarily
winning so how do we know the difference
between winning and success I think
winning is the obvious one we’ve already
talked about it you have rules and games
and somebody wins success I would
recommend you ask yourself three
questions the first question let’s
return to our participation medal
the first key question is did you
participate appropriately did you
participate with the right goals in mind
did you really engage so for a student
you might think you’re participating if
you show up to class but if you’re
watching YouTube on your computer you’re
not participating unless it’s a YouTube
video of me now if you are participating
in engaging that’s the first step to
success
the second thing goals make sure your
goals are correct
make sure you’ve identified appropriate
and reasonable goals think about it
again from the student perspective if
you’re going to a research competition
and you’re going to be pitching some
research and competing it might look
like the goal is winning now winning
that competition is great it would be
wonderful to do it but only one person
wins you can all be successful because
what it’s really about is learning how
to answer those questions be grilled on
your research think on your feet so when
you’re in an interview situation for
your first job you get that job that’s
what the right goal is and that’s
success and the third one make sure you
have your fans still now why do I say
that why do I suddenly talk about fans
well let’s think for a moment about
those sports franchises that never win
you know I’ll know who they are I’m not
gonna point fingers okay these sport
franchises that never win have some of
the most loyal fans I’ve ever seen in my
life often more loyal than the teams
that win and as these loyal fans that
make them successful they may not win a
lot of championships but they still get
money to pay their players to play their
staff to have their stadium and their
fans still enjoy going to the games so
it’s the fans that can bring success who
are your fans they’re your mentors their
professors your bosses your coaches your
friends your family the people who help
you get to success so how does this work
in the university these three questions
well I think at UCI we actually do quite
well we’re doing very well focused on
student success but that question too is
the key one do we have our right goals
in front of us because at the end of the
day we are about graduating students who
have skills like critical thinking
complex problem-solving working in
diverse teams being independent learners
great communicators ethical decision
makers the skills that are critical if
democracy is going to be successful for
6sy Society is going to be successful if
our students are going to be successful
those are the skills we need to impart
and we need to stay focused on that as a
university for me in my own life my
obi-wan kenobe moment where I lost was a
key turning point and I had to ask
myself those three questions did I
participate appropriately luckily I had
because I had applied to a safety school
so when all the top schools rejected me
I still had a grad school to go to did I
have the appropriate goals initially no
initially it was just getting to the
best school what I didn’t know was I got
into UC Santa Barbara and the type of
research being done there was different
it was new it was not what was being
done at the other schools it’s what I
actually ended up in and was that first
step to my successful career so I
actually needed that one
I needed that a little bit better what
about my fans well I had my family and
friends that helped me get through three
rejection letters for one application
but more importantly I had professors
and mentors who came to me asked me
where I was going they knew this fact
about Santa Barbara that it matched me
better and having that information and
getting it at that moment gave me the
confidence that okay this is going to
work out this is the right place to go
so for you how does this work out in
your life when you have that moment of
loss maybe it’s just a date gone bad
maybe it’s a pitch competition and go
well maybe as a student it’s failing a
test failing the class ask yourself
these three questions question one did I
participate appropriately that can be
anything from did you challenge yourself
but did you have a safety net did you
get involved did you engage question two
do you have the right goals are you
focused on the right things in the event
or whatever is going on with the loss
most importantly question three where
are your fans you still have your fans
engage them get that support and move on
to the next step if you ask yourself
these three questions you too can turn a
loss into success which is much better
than winning thank you [Applause]
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