Celebrating Failure

This exercise is all about learning from failure and using it to improve yourself. The example of failure I'm going to tell is going to be kind of embarrassing for me, but hopefully, I'll learn from reflecting on it.

So this past Fall semester I was pledging for Delta Sigma Pi, a professional business fraternity, and one of our tasks was a case competition. Our pledge class was broken up into groups and each group was presented with a case scenario. We had to make a presentation that communicated our group's decision, reasoning, and back all of that up with statistics and visual aids. I've never done this type of presentation before and it was something I felt pretty uncomfortable doing. Eventually, my group formulated our presentation and I felt pretty good about what we had put together. Fast-forward a week or so and each group finds out their scores on the presentation. To my surprise and embarrassment, my group tied for the last place. Essentially we failed the case study.

Initially, I was just super self-conscious about having come in the last place. I was pretty ready just to give up case studies once and for all just because I failed my first time ever doing one. Now that I have had some time to reflect on that situation I feel like I have learned some things. First, it's really easy to beat up on yourself when you're doing something for the first time and don't accomplish your goal. But I can't let that temptation to quit guide me because showing perseverance and persistence will allow me to improve over time. I haven't done another case study since then but I'm sure I could do better than last time, taking into account everything I learned from the judge's feedback. Second, I shouldn't feel embarrassed when I fail most of the time, especially with something completely new. Don't get me wrong, humility is a good characteristic to have, but I shouldn't expect too much when I explore new grounds.

Failure is definitely hard and something I always struggle with being a perfectionist and achiever. It's hard for anyone to admit that they're bad at something, but I think the trick lies in flipping the message you perceive while experiencing failure. Instead of viewing it as a problem, view it as an opportunity. If I failed, I know for sure that I can improve and that provides a challenge for me, which I typically view as fun. The biggest hurdle I have to get over is the emotional pit failure can just suddenly throw me into; after I get over that, I can turn failure into a lesson to improve from. I don't think this class has really changed my mind about failure, however, I can see how failure connects so well with entrepreneurship because the entrepreneurial experience is basically repetitive failure that either ends in success or death. Entrepreneurs have to be especially insensitive to failure because they are faced with many challenges and they won't be prepared for all of them. The successful businesses will learn from mistakes and persevere.