Owning the Rubber and the Road

Accepting failure is tough, but embracing the process leads to success.

I talk to my students a lot about the role failure will play in their careers and what comes from owning those shortcomings rather than deflecting them. Failure can provide us with a learning opportunity if we choose to see it that way. It gives us a method to improve how we approach things based on our own mistakes, not others’ mistakes, which is infinitely more valuable. Yet, for all the positive “failure speak” I go on about, I still struggle to own my garbage. I have to force myself at times to get the rubber to meet the road.

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill

I’ve had the opportunity to realize this (again) about myself recently. You see, I failed a couple of months ago. I made a promise, and I didn’t deliver. I was called to the carpet for failing, as I should have been. And, at that moment, I was faced with an opportunity to learn. However, I didn’t see it that way, and that, friends, is the issue.

No matter how many times we’re faced with our shortcomings, our first instinct seems to be to raise our defenses. We hate standing in the light or having…