Transcript: Gali Bloch Liran | The Human Founder | The Failure Matrix — What's Worth Fixing and What to Let Go

Host: Eyal David · Guest: Gali Bloch Liran · Back to episode

A short tachles (no-nonsense) clip from the full conversation with Gali Bloch Liran, founder of The Human Founder: a simple matrix for understanding whether a failure is internal or external, one-time or ongoing — and what that means for what actually needs work versus what you can simply let go. A short, practical tool you can apply right away.

In this episode

There's no such thing as failure — only growth and learning. It's a mindset you can practice and reinforce all the time.
The first question to ask about any failure: is it momentary (one-time) or ongoing?
The second question: is the failure internal (fully my responsibility) or external (a factor outside my direct control)?
An internal, ongoing failure requires real work; a one-time failure — internal or external — you can simply move on from.
The interesting question isn't what the failure is, but what you do with it — how you turn it into a growth engine.

What even is failure?

Eyal David: [00:00] So what do you actually do with failure? How does this come up in your conversations with entrepreneurs who right now, wow, are at the lowest of lows? How do you deal with it?

The matrix: internal/external, one-time/ongoing

Gali Bloch Liran: [00:12] Great question. One of the best ways: someone asks you something, answer with a question — that already invites reflection and awareness. So let me throw the question back to you: what is failure? A lot of it starts with the question itself, and the definition we give it — like, what is success. Maybe what's a failure for me isn't what's a failure for you, so let's get precise. Now, a sentence you may have heard me say, that I really believe: for me, there's no such thing as failure — there's only growth and learning. That's my mindset in life, and I keep reinforcing it. Now, if there are people who are really perfectionists, or really self-critical, it's possible that if things don't happen exactly the way we want, we'll experience it as failure. So there are a few distinctions worth making that can be really effective. First — let's ask: is this a momentary failure or a persistent one? You constantly fail at math — that's one thing. You failed once on a test? Okay, it happens, let's move on. The second thing worth asking: is this an internal or an external failure? For example: I was supposed to give a talk, and I didn't come prepared — that's an internal failure of mine. An external failure: I'm on a customer call, and a question comes up I wasn't ready for — that's something external. Now: if it's internal and ongoing — there's a problem, it needs work. If it's internal and one-time — fine, small, let's move on from the event. If it's external and ongoing — also, let's move away from it. If it's external and one-time — okay, it happened, next, don't dwell on it. Having said that, I don't want to diminish the intensity of what we sometimes feel — a hundred investors just told me no, and I feel hurt. Let's acknowledge there's a moment of failure that, in that exact moment, I do experience as failure — and about that I want to say: it's all okay, it happens. Let's give that feeling some space, let's pause for a second. To me the question is how well we know how to get out of there, what active steps we can take to help ourselves move on. Give it space, acknowledge it — but tomorrow's a new day, what opportunities do we have now? So failure is part of life, it's our learning journey and our growth. And to me the more interesting question isn't what the failure is, but what we do with it — how we turn it into our growth engine.

End of the tachles episode

Eyal David: [05:20] This was a bottom-line ("takhles") episode from Product Builder. Want to hear the full conversation? Search for it in the feed, and don't forget to follow us.