ou will regret almost none of your failures. You will regret nearly all of your hesitations.

That's not a motivational slogan — it's what the research shows. Cornell psychologist Thomas Gilovich found that over a lifetime, regrets of inaction outnumber regrets of action roughly two to one, and the gap widens as we age. In this episode I unpack the mechanism behind it: action regrets close, because when you take a risk and it fails, you learn, repair, rationalise and recover. Inaction regrets stay open forever, because your imagination endlessly furnishes what might have been.

I share two stories from my own life — the elite team I gave 150% to and didn't make (which looked like failure at the time and became a foundation of my character), and the invitation at my golf club I turned down years ago that I still wonder about. One closed. One never has.

The takeaway: failure is not failure, failure is feedback. And when in doubt, take the risk toward the version of your story where you chose to act.

Grab my book Bridging the Gap free as an audiobook — search "Bridging the Gap Jonathan Doyle" on any podcast app.

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