Simon & Schuster · Preorder now

Learning to Fail

The Unexpected Upside of Taking Real Risks

Aaron Dinin

Hardcover · Launches March 2, 2027

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About the book

You learned the rules. Now learn when to break them.

Full summary

In Learning to Fail, Dr. Aaron Dinin shows how the rules we learn about failure shape our choices, and how much becomes possible when we stop letting them.

You learned early that

Rejection means you weren't good enough.
Uncertainty means you shouldn't move forward.
Quitting means you failed.
Criticism means you were wrong.
Losing means you fell behind.

What happens when you stop treating those lessons like facts?

P.S. (tap to read)Why preorders matter

I realize the book is still a few months away, but publishers use pre-order numbers to decide how many copies to print, and booksellers use them to determine whether to even stock the book, so ordering now, months ahead, is the single most helpful thing you can do. I promise, it won’t cost you anything extra to order today, plus you’ll probably forget about it, which will turn into a delightful surprise when it randomly shows up in the mail later this spring. Thanks for considering!

– Aaron

About the author

Dr. Aaron Dinin

Dr. Aaron Dinin is a Duke professor, entrepreneur, creator, and author known for helping people rethink their relationship with failure. He teaches popular courses including Learning to Fail, Asking Dumb Questions, and Building Global Audiences, where students learn through unconventional challenges and the occasional deeply weird classroom assignment. A former founder of multiple tech companies, he combines academic insight, entrepreneurial scars, and a social media account that reaches hundreds of millions of people each year to make failure feel less like a punishment and more like something worth understanding. His work has been featured on The Today Show, Bloomberg, WIRED, and even Cosmopolitan.

More at aarondinin.com

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