Scott EmpringhamAI Marketing Strategist | Helping CEOs Scale with AI

YOU DIDN'T TRY EVERYTHING. 🔥 #keepgoing #tryagain #doityourself

12 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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1:19

In this motivational monologue, Scott Empringham critiques the habit of settling for a few attempts and declares that true progress comes from relentless iteration. He references a well‑known study where kindergartners, engineers, college students, attorneys, and parents were each given tape, spaghetti, and marshmallows to build the tallest freestanding tower in twelve minutes. Engineers placed first, but kindergartners placed second because they repeatedly tried, failed, and learned without hesitation. In contrast, attorneys and parents spent much of the time discussing leadership and only attempted a few builds, resulting in poor performance. Empringham uses this contrast to argue that embracing frequent failure and rapid prototyping—trying dozens or hundreds of variations—is essential for success. He ends with a direct call to the audience to increase their number of attempts dramatically, urging them not to claim they’ve “tried everything” when they have only tried a handful.

Chapters

You didn't try everything. You tried like 3 things and called it everything. And here's what I mean. Years ago, there was a study done with kindergartners, engineers, college students, attorneys, parents. They gave them tape, spaghetti, and marshmallows and 12 minutes to build the tallest freestanding structure. And you know who won? Yes, engineers. You know who came in second? Kindergartners. Why? Because they were unafraid to fail over and over. Let me give you an example. The attorneys sat there and talked for 4 or 5 minutes of the 12 minutes about who would be in charge. The last few minutes, they started to build a freestanding structure. And on average, they tried and failed about 3 times. You know what the parents did? Same thing. They talked for like 8 minutes, tried 2 or 3 things, and it failed and it collapsed. They did poorly. But you know what the kindergartners did? As soon as the clock went off, they just started mashing crap together over and over again. They failed dozens of times in those 12 minutes. Each kid failed multiple times and stacked failure on top of failure. But you know what they also did? They learned. That's the key. So this week, this month, if you've tried 3 things, try 30 things. If you've tried 30 things, try 300 things. Don't tell me you've tried everything when you've tried 3 things. Push yourself to iterate. That's where the success is.