When you "die" in a given context but continue to survive, it's empowering.

Death in a given context is a "game over" that we intuitively fear almost infinitely.

When you die, there are no more moves you can make, an infinite loss.

But we intuitively fear "death" (e.g. getting fired, having an idea shot down by a superior) in a given context as though it's a real death.

But of course that context is stacked inside of a nesting doll of other contexts, and death in one does not kill you in the others.

When you survive a thing that feels like death, you realize that it's not actually a death.

This is an empowering feeling, as a whole new universe of asymmetric moves open up to you.

If everyone else in that context is acting like failure is death, but you know it isn't, you can swing for the fences every time.

You'll look reckless or misguided to those others, but you know the secret and you're actually being more rational.

An example of this phenomena: for people who have only ever been employed in their adult life, the period where they're unemployed (e.g. before getting a new startup founded) feels like death.

The bank account keeps on ticking down, not up!

But once you realize that you're still alive and doing fine, you realize you were overly fearful of it for too long.