Some of you will fail…
This was the proclamation of my Professor at the start of the Finance course within my MBA programme a number of years ago.
I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately since it has come up in a range of conversations across a host of different topics. It’s interesting to me that all of these conversations have been with women and all include associated emotional responses to failure of both fear and anger.
I remember how I felt when my professor spoke those words. They certainly struck fear in my heart. Although I had performed well years previously in secondary school mathematics courses, I had taken the subject only as long as I had to before switching to more ‘practical’ courses — ones that would help me find immediate employment after graduation. Courses like shorthand, typing and business machines. Yes, it was that long ago. I graduated high school with honours and started work the following day at the local School District with the grand title of Accounts Payable Clerk.
Flash forward many years later to my mature student experience in that MBA classroom. I didn’t want to fail. I always worked hard. I wasn’t a student that could just wing it to achieve. And I worked hard in that Finance course. I didn’t do it alone. I found a willing group of fellow students and we created a study group. We supported each other and spent many nights poring over complex Finance problems. I hated every minute of it. And through that support, accompanied by determination and sustained effort, I managed to ace the course. When he learned I was moving to the UK, my Professor encouraged me to continue in the Finance stream — where better to practice Finance than London? I didn’t take that route and in fact, I have really never used what I learned in Finance.
Was it the fear of failure that drove me to get through that experience? Perhaps. But the voice in my own head that feared failure was stronger than that of the Professor. I would have worked just as hard if he hadn’t made that pronouncement. In fact, it wasn’t his words at all that helped me to succeed.
I have failed many times in my life before and since. For instance: I have failed to make a boy love me, I have failed to get jobs, I have failed in jobs, I have failed to purchase homes I wanted, I have failed to convince others of my views, I have failed to negotiate my preferred terms. And I have come back from these failures — always with the support of others and often with the retrospective realisation that something better awaited down the line.
I do know this. Someone simply telling me I may fail in itself has never helped me. I know that I may fail. What I also equally know, or at least I try to know, is that I may not fail, and even when I do, failure won’t defeat me.
The greatest irony is that my Finance Professor probably could have accurately and perhaps more helpfully said, “All of you will fail. Not in reference to a course, but in reference to what happens in your life. All of you will fail. And all of you can choose to become stronger because of those failures. And all of you can rise.” #IWD2021 #ChooseToChallenge