Losing well: what champions learn from their biggest defeats

The Short Version

A chess prodigy, a judo world champion, a comedian who used to play pro tennis and the winner of a wilderness survival show all tell the same story: their defeats taught them more than their wins. Josh Waitzkin says his most heartbreaking losses "were the greatest moments of my life in retrospect" and that one lost world championship game held the principle that won him a Tai Chi world title years later [2]. Neil Adams, who lost two Olympic finals, one of them as the favorite, says great champions are defined by how they handle defeat, though his own losses first pushed him into nightmares and a drinking spiral [3]. Joe Rogan and Michael Kosta argue that you don't learn by winning all the time, which is why tennis and stand-up both build grit [4]. Jordan Jonas turned a missed moose into a new plan that won him Alone Season 6, calling the ability to accept failure fast and learn from it "kind of a muscle you have to exercise" [5]. The pattern is not that losing feels good. Top performers care enough to be crushed, then go back and study the loss until it gives up its lesson.

Table of contents

What They Said

Josh Waitzkin: losses carry the seeds of later breakthroughs

Waitzkin, the chess prodigy whose childhood inspired Searching for Bobby Fischer and who went on to win Tai Chi push hands world championships, makes losing the center of his philosophy of learning [1][2].

The first loss that shaped everything. At about eight, Waitzkin lost the last round of a national championship by falling into an opening trap [2]. Had he won, he says, he might have associated winning with no pain [2]. On Joe Rogan's show he explains that the loss taught him he couldn't win without struggling first, so he never linked winning to talent or to labels like prodigy [1]. The boy who beat him, David Arnett, became his best friend [2].

Always playing up. As the top-rated player for his age, Waitzkin always played adult masters who spotted every weakness [1]. He recalls a father boasting that his son hadn't lost a chess game in two years, which Waitzkin knew meant the boy was only playing people he could beat [1]. "There's no luck in chess," he says: a strong opponent always finds the one hole in your preparation [1]. Because he was always the target, rivals and their coaches studied and exploited any weakness, so not taking on his weaknesses fell outside his conceptual scheme [2]. He admits the drive can become a blind spot, and says the goal is for it to be a choice rather than something that runs you [1].

The Svidler game: from agony to insight. Waitzkin's most detailed story is the final round of the under-18 world championship when he was 17 [2]. Ten days into the event, Peter Svidler offered him a draw in a critical position. Waitzkin describes the pull of that moment: "no matter how much we love the battle some piece of ourselves wants a way out like we want to release the tension" [2]. He declined the draw, but "the urge to release the tension Is subtly entering into my chess decision," and he "made a slightly over aggressive move" [2]. Svidler played a beautiful attacking game and won [2].

The pain was so great that he broke his own habit of studying every game right away: "I didn't study that chess loss for Two and a half months It was so painful to me" [2]. When he finally sat down at sea with his family, he spent a dozen-plus hours on the one critical position and realized "the move I should have made Was outside of my conceptual scheme" [2]. The right move was to pull his last defensive piece away from his king, which seemed counterintuitive, because "His attack needed my defense like fire needs fuel to burn" [2]. He calls this "harnessing the power of empty space against aggression" [2].

He didn't understand the principle then. A year later he started studying Taoist philosophy and Tai Chi push hands, whose essence he describes as learning to use empty space against aggression, without connecting it to the lost game [2]. In the 2004 Tai Chi world championship final, against a bigger, stronger opponent, he won by letting the opponent lean on him, then disappearing [2]. He sees this pattern everywhere: a devastating loss seeds the insight behind a later breakthrough, in sport, business, writing and love [2].

You have to care enough to be shattered. Waitzkin adds a nuance he regrets about how his book The Art of Learning was used [2]. Its process-over-outcome message led some parents to tell young players results don't matter, which the kids saw through [2]. You have to care enough to be shattered for the process to work, he says; the skill is to be in the rupture while also holding the perspective your future self will have about it [2]. Huberman adds the neuroscience: the brain has little reason to change without some mismatch, frustration or agitation, and grief is the painful remapping of many "go" programs into "no go" [2].

Seek the beating on purpose. On Rogan's show, Waitzkin praises those who, at the end of a sparring session, seek out the toughest partner instead of an easy rest, calling it seeking accountability as a way of life [1]. "Hard is beautiful," he says [1]. He tries to live at max stretch without snapping, noting that if you're succeeding all the time you're not pushing hard enough [2]. For adults entering a new art, he calls the challenge "post-conscious freedom": being willing to tap to everyone or get beaten while you learn [1].

Learn from other people's losses too. Waitzkin's concept of "fire walking" is learning from others' mistakes with the same bodily intensity as from your own [2]. A fighter whose arm gets broken never over-extends it again, while someone watching barely learns. Through biofeedback, visualization and personal triggers, he primes himself so studying others' worst moments lands with real force [2]. When he studies a mistake, he looks at the technical, thematic and psychological layers together, because fixing the underlying theme clears dozens of related errors [2].

Winning brings its own trap. Waitzkin warns that success can be as dangerous as defeat. Successful people build a mental model, "the groove becomes a rut," and they cling to it because their identity is attached [1]. In sports, teams stop dominating and start protecting a lead; his advice is "don't protect the fucking lead" [1]. "I think the impulse once one wins Is to do what one did before But the world changes," he says [2]. His model is Marcelo Garcia, who never missed a Monday training after a Sunday win, and who after dominating the ADCC championship shed his whole repertoire and won two years later with something new [2]. He describes the Boston Celtics, where he works with head coach Joe Mazzulla, embracing being the target after a title: "all of our weaknesses are being exposed which is what we want" [2]. "Our competitors arrivals help Force us to take our shit on," he says, which "makes it very hard to sit in static quality unless we're we're happy with mediocrity" [2]. He says he has "never seen anyone in my life better at turning weaknesses and strengths than Joe," turning an area of weakness "into a core power zone" [2].

Neil Adams: the dark years after losing as the favorite

Neil Adams, the British judoka who won the 1981 World Championship, two Olympic silver medals and five European titles, and who is now known as the voice of judo, gives the most honest account of what losing costs [3].

Two Olympic finals. At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Adams cut weight into a lighter division while his body was still growing, faced an eight-hour wait before the final, lost his momentum and lost to Italy's Ezio Gamba on a split decision [3]. He calls the weight cut probably the worst decision he made; the final was the only contest he lost that year [3]. In 1984 in Los Angeles he was the favorite, but he arrived tired and thinking he just needed to get it over with, which he calls the wrong attitude [3]. In the final, Germany's young Frank Wieneke faked a right uchi mata and switched to a left drop seoi nage for ippon [3]. Adams says another minute and a half and he would have won. Three weeks later he beat Wieneke in the German Open final, but it "appeased nothing" [3].

The dark years. The losses didn't simply teach him. They haunted him. A recurring dream has him trying to get somewhere to put the Olympic final right, only for traffic or something else to stop him, and he wakes up sweating [3]. He believes the defeats contributed to a dark period of heavy drinking. He describes himself as a functioning drunk who kept training to mask it, joking to his wife Nicky that he was probably the fittest drunk in the world [3]. His first marriage ended, which was hard on his son Ashley, who took a long time to trust him again [3]. The turning point came on December 20, while working for Belgian judo, when he and a Belgian coach got drunk in the wrong place and he was hauled before a board. He told them he would stop, called Nicky from the car, and did [3]. "I do have sleepless nights," he says of the Olympic losses [3].

The loss that shaped the life. Yet Adams says honestly that if he had won in 1984, his life might have gone differently: he might not have competed in 1988, met his wife or had the family he wouldn't trade for anything [3]. Lex Fridman puts it to him that "part of the demons that you've gotten to know because of those losses is part of probably the central reason they made you the man you are" [3]. Adams agrees an Olympic gold is just an Olympic gold, and notes that many Olympic and world champions win and are then forgotten [3]. After retiring he told Nicky, "I don't want to be forgotten and I want to be remembered," and resolved to coach and commentate at the highest level [3]. His first commentary "with terrible, and I just thought I've got to do better than this," so he learned to do it professionally [3].

Lessons in Losing. In his book A Game of Throws, Adams has a chapter called "Lessons in Losing" [3]. His central lesson: "I think great champions are made up of the people that handle it in the right way" [3]. You can be a bad loser in front of everybody, and "people pick up on that very, very quickly," but "the ones that endear themselves to you are the ones that handle it in the right way" [3]. That doesn't mean enjoying it: "It doesn't mean that you've got to like it. I didn't like it" [3]. For him, "it's a make or break situation. It's not all the contest they win" [3]. His example is French champion Clarisse Agbegnenou, who came back after giving birth, lost a match and told people not to be upset: "It's just one contest, you know, next time I'm going to put it right and she did put it right" [3]. She won the world title back [3]. For Adams himself, the hardest part of the Olympic losses was having to smile and be respectful in front of the microphones [3].

Losing in the training room. Adams's career is also full of smaller, deliberate defeats. At 16 in Japan, a gold-toothed student threw him repeatedly and left him in tears; he came back every year until, at 19, he caught him in an armlock [3]. Being thrown in Japanese dojos, he says, sharpened his sense of danger and his defense, and he once went more than two years without being scored on in competition [3]. His groundwork obsession began in 1978 when he was caught in a triangle; he vowed never to be caught on the ground again and never lost on the ground for the rest of his career [3].

Hating losing, and fearing it. Adams's relationship with defeat is not serene. His 1986 book says "the desire to win was and still is as much a part of me as my arms and legs" [3]. Asked whether he loves winning or hates losing more: "I hate losing more, but I love winning" [3]. It still bugs him to lose at lawn bowls to his son [3]. He also describes a hazard of success: after becoming world champion, "I had a period of time where every time I stepped out there, I was really afraid of losing," which he thinks happens later in many careers [3]. As a commentator he watches for the difference between "somebody who's in there just going forward trying to win" and "somebody who's trying not to lose" [3].

Michael Kosta and Joe Rogan: losing builds grit

Michael Kosta, a Daily Show host and correspondent and former pro tennis player, wrote a memoir titled Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy [4]. His best world ranking was 864 [4]. His book includes a photo of him crying on court at age eight after losing a final [4]. Looking at it now as a parent, he jokes, "who the fuck took that picture?" and adds, "as a comic holy shit, we've all felt like that. Oh, man, it's so personal when you when you fail a comic" [4].

Kosta once hid his tennis past because the sport seemed elite and country club, but he now embraces it, because it taught him the discipline and solo problem-solving comedy requires [4]. He also notes that tennis gives you a fresh start that combat sports don't: "if you're just bombing aces, after the first set, clean slate, we start all over again" [4]. He took a real risk on that lesson, leaving a $31,000-a-year tennis coaching job at the University of Michigan to try comedy, and made about $6,000 his first year [4].

Rogan's case for getting your ass kicked. Rogan draws out the lesson directly. "I think there's some value in getting your ass kicked," he says, and "getting dumped is good. I think all that's valuable" [4]. "I don't think you learn by winning all the time. And I don't think you learn if something's easy," which, he argues, is why people who were "just born with five aces" through looks or luck "are often ridiculous in the way they behave" [4]. Kosta turns it to parenting: "So how do you instill grit, toughness in a generation?" admitting he helps his five-year-old with her buttons when "She should be struggling to do this" [4]. Rogan suggests any difficult pursuit, whether sports, music, chess or art, teaches that effort produces results [4].

The two see the same pattern in their craft. Rogan compares joke writing to gold mining, where you only get to gold by going through garbage, and Kosta agrees that a terrible new-material show often produces a breakthrough the next day [4]. They also contrast low-stakes and high-stakes losing. Kosta would rather his kid "play soccer or tennis, learn some important lessons with low stakes," while fighting is "serious stakes" [4]. Rogan still argues kids, especially boys, "should all learn how to fight so they don't ever fight" [4].

Jordan Jonas: the moose that got away

Jordan Jonas won Alone Season 6 after 77 days near the Arctic Circle in Canada [5]. His story is a compact case study in turning a miss into a win.

The miss. On the first moose he saw, Jonas misjudged the distance on a mud flat with no trees or markers for reference. He estimated about 30 yards when it was 40-something, and the arrow dropped between the moose's legs [5]. He had left his quiver behind, so he had only one shot, and watched the giant animal walk away [5]. His reactions came in stages. First he wasn't mad, just thrilled to have seen something like a dinosaur [5]. Then: "oh, what an idiot. How to miss. But then I was like, but it made me that much more determined to make it happen again" [5]. "Nobody's going to make this happen except myself. You can't complain. It wouldn't have done me any good to go back and moat about it" [5].

The redesign. He then drew on what he'd learned from native hunters in Siberia, who build giant fences to funnel game [5]. "I was like, man, that's a lot of calories. But I have to make that happen again now" [5]. He built the fence, plus an alarm of string and cans, knowing both could fail: "I don't care if it's a risk. I'm going to build that fence" [5]. On day 20, while taking a rabbit out of a snare, he heard the cans clank, ran to the funnel exit and shot a big bull moose at about 24 yards [5]. "It's another thing that could have not worked, but it worked," he says [5]. Even the second shot wasn't perfect: the moose was quartering toward him, and the arrow hit one lung, so he had to track it patiently for hours [5]. He reflects that "particularly when you're first learning to hunt, there's always an animal that gets away," and "it's just part of it" [5]. When the moose finally died, he says, "it got rid of that demon," the weeks of fear of starving, and calls it "one of the happiest moments of my life" [5].

Failure as a muscle. Jonas's general lesson is that "the more you put yourself in life and positions that are kind of outside your comfort zone or push your abilities, the more often you're going to screw up. And then the more opportunity you have to learn from that" [5]. Eventually you reach a point where mistakes don't feel so uncomfortable [5]. "Being able to take failure as soon as you can, the better accept it. And then learn from it is kind of a muscle you have to exercise a little bit" [5].

More setbacks, more adapting. His original plan (catch fish, let them rot, pile them up and hunt a bear over the pile) fell apart when the fish didn't bite and a past fire had wiped out the berries, leaving few grouse or bears [5]. "You have to be really adaptable because everything's going to, it's always going to look different in your situation," he says [5]. After the moose, a wolverine stole his jug of moose fat in the night, and "I went from feeling pretty good about myself to like, now I'm losing again" [5]. His response was to start building the elevated food cache native people use, which he regrets not finishing right away [5]. He also started the show grumpy, convinced his site was bad, until he accepted it: "no amount of complaining is going to do anybody any good" [5].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

The shared pattern

Losses teach what wins can't. Waitzkin says his most painful losses were the greatest moments of his life in retrospect [2]. Rogan says you don't learn by winning all the time [4]. Jonas says the more you push past your comfort zone, the more you screw up and the more you learn [5]. Adams's list of lessons, from the Japanese student who threw him to tears to the 1978 triangle choke, shows defeats becoming defenses [3].

Early, honest defeat protects against false beliefs about talent. Waitzkin's first national loss kept him from associating winning with talent or the prodigy label [1][2], and he believes people who identify as prodigies grow brittle because they credit innate gifts [2]. Rogan makes the same argument about people born with "five aces" [4].

Seeking losses on purpose. Waitzkin always played up and praises picking the toughest sparring partner [1]. Adams went back to Japan every year to face the student who had humiliated him [3]. Jonas deliberately puts himself in positions beyond his comfort zone [5]. Kosta and Rogan want kids to struggle with hard pursuits rather than be rescued [4].

Adaptation, not repetition. Jonas built a fence rather than waiting for another lucky moose [5]. Waitzkin warns that the impulse after a win is to repeat what worked, but the world changes [2]. Adams notes that after defeats, the best judoka adapt within a match, attacking again and again until it works [3].

The tensions

Losing can break you before it teaches you. The sources differ on how cleanly loss turns into learning. Jonas moved from "what an idiot" to a new plan within his reaction to a single miss [5]. Adams's story is darker: his 1984 loss led to recurring nightmares, heavy drinking and a broken marriage before he stopped, and even a win over the same opponent three weeks later "appeased nothing" [3]. Waitzkin sits in between: the Svidler loss was so painful he couldn't look at it for two and a half months, and its lesson took years to surface [2]. The difference seems to lie partly in stakes and time. A missed moose on day 10 left room to try again [5]; an Olympic final comes around once every four years and is replayed millions of times [3].

Should you care about results? Waitzkin regrets that his process-over-outcome message led parents to tell kids results don't matter; you have to care enough to be shattered [2]. Adams embodies caring intensely: he hates losing more than he loves winning [3]. But both also warn that caring can curdle into fear. Adams went through a phase after his world title of being afraid of losing every time he stepped out [3], and Waitzkin warns against teams that start protecting a lead [1]. Waitzkin's answer is to be in the rupture while holding your future self's perspective [2]; Adams's is to handle the loss with dignity and learn from it without pretending to like it [3].

Is the lesson technical or personal? Waitzkin's lessons are often technical and thematic, like the principle of empty space [2]. Jonas's are practical: judging distance, funneling game, protecting fat [5]. Adams's biggest lessons were personal: how to lose with grace, when to quit drinking, and what he wanted to be remembered for [3]. Kosta and Rogan focus on character, the grit and discipline that transfer to comedy [4]. The sources suggest the richest losses teach on all these levels, which is exactly how Waitzkin studies mistakes [2].

How much losing is useful? Kosta prefers his kids to learn lessons "with low stakes" through soccer or tennis [4]. Waitzkin, who grew up in brutally high-stakes competition, says he would never put his own children through that pressure, having watched nearly all his young rivals quit and fall into crisis [2]. Losing is a teacher, but the sources don't suggest more pain is always better.

Why It Works

Loss creates the mismatch the brain needs to change. Huberman explains that the brain has little reason to change without some mismatch, frustration or agitation [2]. A win confirms the current model; a loss proves it wrong. Grief, he says, is the painful remapping of many "go" programs into "no go" [2].

Honest arenas expose hidden holes. Waitzkin argues that one-on-one competition exposes every weakness, since "There's no luck in chess" and a strong opponent will find any gap [1][2]. He values truth-telling arenas with accurate feedback, like the jiu-jitsu mats or a chess rating [1]. The Celtics welcome being the target because opponents expose their weaknesses, forcing them to improve [2]. Losing is the feedback that such arenas provide.

Studying the loss deeply reveals principles, not just fixes. Waitzkin spent a dozen-plus hours on one position to find the principle behind his error, then found the same principle in Tai Chi [2]. Looking at the technical, thematic and psychological layers of a mistake together, he says, clears dozens of related errors at once [2].

Pain makes the lesson stick. Waitzkin notes that a fighter whose arm gets broken never over-extends it again, which is why he tries to learn from others' mistakes with the same bodily intensity [2]. Adams never lost on the ground again after being caught in a triangle [3].

Repeated failure lowers the fear of failure. Jonas says that with enough time outside your comfort zone, you reach a point where you don't feel that uncomfortable about mistakes [5]. That frees you to take risks, like his fence, that might not work [5]. Rogan and Kosta describe the same effect on stage, where bombing leads to breakthroughs [4].

Defeat protects against the traps of winning. Waitzkin argues that winners tend to get stuck in grooves that become ruts because their identity is attached [1][2]. Early and regular losses stop success from being linked to fixed talent [1][2], and keep people hunting adversity instead of protecting a lead [1][2].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies in arenas that tell the truth. Chess, judo, tennis, comedy and survival all give quick, unambiguous feedback [1][3][4][5]. Waitzkin recommends grounding yourself in arenas with accurate feedback loops [1].

It applies when there's a next attempt. Jonas's lesson paid off because the moose came again [5]. Agbegnenou could put it right because there was a next contest [3]. When the stakes are once-in-a-lifetime, as with Adams's Olympic finals, the lesson may be about life rather than the sport [3].

It requires caring, and time. You have to care enough to be shattered [2], and the learning can take months or years to arrive [2].

It doesn't mean losses are harmless. Adams's drinking and recurring nightmares are a reminder that big defeats can lead to real harm [3]. His advice to others includes taking a break from drinking, finding the cause of what is pushing you down, and remembering that someone would gladly trade places with you [3]. If a loss leaves you depressed or drinking heavily, talk to a doctor or mental health professional rather than waiting for the lesson to arrive on its own.

Losing too much, too young, can backfire. Waitzkin wouldn't put his kids through the pressure he faced [2], and Kosta prefers low-stakes lessons for his children [4]. The goal is struggle that builds grit, not crushing pressure.

Winning needs the same scrutiny. The flip side of learning from losses is not getting stuck after wins [1][2]. Adams's fear of losing after his title [3] shows that success brings its own risks.

What To Do With It

1. Play up. Choose opponents, partners and projects that can beat you. Waitzkin always played stronger adults and praises seeking the toughest sparring partner at the end of a session [1].

2. Care about results, and let the loss hurt. Don't pretend outcomes don't matter; you have to care enough to be shattered for the lesson to land [2]. Adams didn't like losing, and didn't have to [3].

3. Hold your future self's perspective. While you're in the pain, remind yourself how you may see this loss years from now [2].

4. Study the loss deeply, even if it takes time. When you're ready, find the critical moment and look at its technical, thematic and psychological layers together [2]. Waitzkin needed two and a half months before he could look at the Svidler game [2].

5. Move from blame to redesign fast. Follow Jonas's sequence: acknowledge the mistake, refuse to complain, and ask what new approach could create the opportunity again [5]. Accept that the new plan might fail too [5].

6. Handle defeat in public with grace. Treat one loss as "just one contest," as Agbegnenou did, and commit to putting it right next time [3]. People notice how you lose [3].

7. Learn from other people's losses. Watch others' mistakes as if they were your own, with real emotional attention, as in Waitzkin's "fire walking" [2].

8. Don't protect the lead. After a win, keep attacking and keep changing [1]. Hunt for adversity, and welcome opponents who expose your weaknesses [2].

9. Let kids struggle at low stakes. Resist the urge to do the buttons for them; hard pursuits such as sports, music, chess or art teach that effort produces results [4].

10. Watch for the dark side. If a defeat leads to heavy drinking, sleepless nights or withdrawal, as it did for Adams, address it directly and get support [3].

Sources

1. Josh Waitzkin · The Joe Rogan Experience
2. The Art of Learning & Living Life · Huberman Lab
3. Neil Adams: Judo, Olympics, Winning, Losing, and the Champion Mindset · Lex Fridman Podcast
4. Michael Kosta · The Joe Rogan Experience
5. Jordan Jonas: Survival, Hunting, Siberia, God, and Winning Alone Season 6 · Lex Fridman Podcast