Ask Adam Savage: Collecting Failures

um james dutra have you ever had  a total failure that the client   boss liked better than what  they had originally asked for that is a great question i don't think so that would be a really neat boss to work for  though right like somebody who saw like that   that would be cool it's a great  question ian crook says do you collect   your failures to potentially fix them  later or act as a reminder of your growth   the latter act as a reminder of my growth  i hang the failures all over the place   i hang them from the ceiling i've got a old  dinosaur neck over there um in fact it's my one   it's my having traveled around to hundreds of  maker spaces around the united states and around   the world my biggest complaint about maker spaces  is that they're too damn clean uh i think that   makerspace's walls should be packed salon style  with all of the failures that are continuing to   happen every day in that space i think that's the  kind of inspiration that every makerspace should   engender that's my personal opinion that you know  if you have a makerspace you don't want to do that   that's fine um but uh i do think it's really  instructive to look at to look at that stuff up   on the walls i mean one of the first shops i ever  worked in had a piece of plywood with a classic   mark on it that spoke to someone who had not been  using a fence and the piece of wood flew back on   them and someone root on it mr table saw does  not like it when you don't hold the wood firmly   that is an instruction it is  a great visual instruction   um as to the cost of failure of using the table  saw so i get a lot out of hanging my previous work   and the iterations of a project up on the wall and  i save a lot of those i mean there's also there's there is something really beautiful about the  object years later you know that thing you   screwed up i don't know if i have one nearby but  like that thing you screwed up it's emotionally   activating you today but five years from  now you'll pick it up and you'll be like   yeah i remember this remember this day um it's  good to connect with that stuff i think so i do   hold on to my failures when they're  aesthetically interesting and i do   hang them up around me in order to be able to see  them because i i definitely find that inspiring um   you know the entire back wall of  my shop is uncompleted projects   it's things i've half done or haven't even gotten  started with but i really do want to get to some   day and i have a whole nother storage of them up  here in the loft um but those aren't failures per   se they're just they're projects that haven't  happened yet but again i gain a lot for myself   out of having that stuff visually available  to me the cacophony of like seeing it all   is inspiring i take one more okay we're gonna  take one more question uh i think that is all   the ones from the live stream um ah alex g reed  you mentioned in the past an experience where   you did not do a good job working on a film  and led to an end of the end of a friendship   did that experience change your approach to  method uh and methodology for collaborations yeah   yeah okay so um tldr i was 19 years old in new  york and i took on the task of art directing   a friend of mine's film she was producing and  i uh there is a talk that i did at maker faire   uh i guess if we release this we can put it in  the comments of standalone video about this um   and yeah i screwed up so badly that a person who  was one of my closest friends said to me that she   was no longer my friend and i had never until that  moment i had never felt that low and i recalled   my dad and i was talking about it i was weeping  about it i just was really really upset and sad   and i felt really shitty i felt like a terrible  person and my dad said you really screwed up   and you are not a terrible person you are a  person and all you can do from this is resolve   to not do it again you can't fix what you've  done you can't undo what you've done and you   can apologize to the people you did it to that's  not going to help i mean you should it's not going   to change the situation all you can do is resolve  to try and not let that same thing happen again that was a lovely graceful thing to say because   yeah after i did that i realized oh i have a hero  complex i want to solve all the problems and i   don't like asking for help clearly this problem  occurred because i didn't know how to ask for help   and about six or eight months later  a young filmmaker came to me who was   much more higher placed in the film industry and  he was making a personal film in new york and this   film had a real budget and he had an incredibly  complex special effect he wanted to achieve   of a bedroom being yanked out of a building in  whole cloth right so like bricks and mortar and   all of this stuff happening and he asked me to  bid on it and i bid on it but in the bid i said i   can't tackle this job alone it's going to require  extra people and thus the budget's going to be at   least this and i didn't get the job i'm so glad  that i did not get that job like that was exactly   the right thing to do at that moment was this job  is bigger than anything i've done before if i am   going to tackle it i can't possibly do the same  thing i did before i must change my ways and know   to ask for help and i think at that early stage  in my career of making stuff and making stuff   on jobs for other people at that early stage  i didn't know how to say that without sounding   i think i probably sounded like a real neophyte  i probably sounded like what i was a super green   late teenager which is fine that's what i was i  you know i avoided a lot of a lot more mistakes   that way by being attentive to that part of my  personality that doesn't like asking for help yeah i don't like asking  for help it's a fascinating   i i i one of the things i listen to a lot  here in the shop is bill withers lately i find   i find bill withers loving cynicism about the  world to be exactly the bomb i want right now and   that song call on me brother when you need a hand   there's a lyric in which he says and i had never  listened to it before this year i'd never really   taken in this lyric where he says i can't help  you with any problem that you won't let me see   such a beautiful beautiful thing for a friend to  say um and it is important in both relationships   and also professionally to communicate about  these things that we don't know how to do   and that's hard you know my son was telling  me about working in the restaurant industry   we were cooking together and i was cutting  stuff up for my kid he i was like tell me if   i'm doing this wrong he's like yeah no you're  doing fine and i'm like when you're in the   restaurant this chef told show you exactly how  he wants it done my son's like no they don't do   that in the kitchen they just tell you to  figure it out it's like that is tough man   but the only way you're going to learn is by  screwing it up and then eventually getting it   right um i really appreciate you all spending time  with me in this space today talking about failure   and iteration and recovery and self-forgiveness  i think that's really what we're always talking   about when we're talking about screwing up in in  any way uh we're talking about forgiving ourselves   and what are we really forgiving ourselves for  we're not forgiving ourselves for like screwing   up that thing we're forgetting ourselves for being  a human being which is messy and confusing and   opaque and ridiculous and humiliating and magical  and loving and transformative and transcendent and yeah i'm very grateful uh so thank you guys  so much for joining me for this live stream i   again if i didn't get to your question today  i i'm going to answer some more of these over   the next coming weeks because there's  some really really good questions here stay safe uh i'm so excited uh if you get to see  your loved ones soon i'm so excited for you it is   awesome uh and i will see you guys at  the next live stream thanks so much

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 87,137

Keywords: tested, adam savage, ask adam savage, adam savage tested, adam savage q&a, adam savage answers, adam savage questions, adam savage failure, adam savage failed projects, adam savage advice, adam savage answers your questions, adam savage answers questions, adam savage tested q and a, ask adam savage tested, ask adam savage anything, adam savage tested questions

Id: jHwM-nnG-vI

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021