The Commercially Savvy Lawyer(c): Learning from Failure to Level Up

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.

~ Dale Carnegie

In my life, I have failed at a few things: Chemistry in 11th grade, and Philosophy in my second year at St. Andrews. In each instance, I was devastated and shaken to the core - I was a perfectionist (and still am) and had not yet learned that learning is a process - I was one of those students who, if it did not come easily the first time, I didn't know how to learn in a methodical and patient way the way I do now. That said, I learned some valuable lessons from my academic failures that I took with me into my adulthood after course correcting.

F in Chemistry.

I went to a very exclusive school in Manhattan. In retrospect, it was not a good fit and I should have known that - I wanted to continue to play field hockey in high school and Dalton didn't offer that. I was bullied relentlessly by an obnoxious 10th grader who kept likening me to some of the grosses biology experiments. I was shy and lacking in confidence but I made some friends. Funnily enough, I met said bully (he was expelled for smoking pot in the boy's bathroom) and he apologized profusely for making my 9th grade experience a misery. I decided to stay at Dalton because of the prestige factor - my mother dangled Swiss boarding school in front of my face but there was a glut of options and I couldn't choose - I was paralyzed by fear of making a wrong choice. I know now that there are no bad choices and you should be where you feel good and accepted, not because of some shallow idea of status.

My grades were very good in general though I struggled with math and science because I still didn't know how to learn properly (something I learned how to do at St. Andrews). In 11th grade, I had a chemistry teacher who was a graduate of Princeton University. I don't remember his name, I just remember that he had red hair, he was tall, he grew up in New Jersey and he had a major chip on his shoulder. I know he had a chip on his shoulder because he said in every single class, "If I lived in Manhattan, I could have gotten into this school." It was my first glimpse into adult ugliness. I think the chip caused him to have impossibly high standards because he kept grading me extremely harshly and refused to help me. Dalton has an "all access" system whereby students who need help can get extra tutelage from their teachers at mutually convenient times during the school day. Mr. Chip-on-His-Shoulder kept me at a D- and finally failed me. He was a novice teacher and I paid for it. I was frustrated, angry, dumbfounded, and humiliated. I remember crying on the corner with my friend Jared who comforted me. Failing in 11th grade is a big deal because those grades were the most important grades for college. And now I had to go to summer school.

Summer school was a transformative experience. Thankfully, the summer school teacher was a gentleman and a gifted teacher. He had graduated from Yale and he was clear and neutral in his explanations. Chemistry started to make a lot of sense, I really enjoyed the process of learning, and, after 6 weeks of learning one academic year's worth of chemistry, I got an A-, the grade I could have gotten in the first place. That year and summer, I learned that failure is not always your fault (the first teacher's attitude and lack of teaching aptitude contributed to my first failure) and if you do fail, it's not the end of the world. I recovered and ended up going to the University of St. Andrews so failing chemistry didn't ruin my chances of getting into a good college.

Philosophy.

I went to St. Andrews before it became Americanized. There was a system whereby you could take three classes in your first and second years and then, provided you passed, you joined the "Honours programme." In my second year, my father urged me to take philosophy. I hated it but I stuck it out because I didn't want to let my father down. "You will learn lessons for life!" I wanted to learn Arabic or study Latin - but Dad won. And I failed.

This was another humiliation for me. Learning was supposed to be fun, enriching, and transformative. Philosophy - at the time - did not come naturally to me. I was either intellectually immature or my brains hadn't yet been wired to understand the concepts. It was a huge blow to my confidence and I felt stupid.

The lesson, however, was clear. Always listen to your own instincts. For sure, if I had studied something in which I had a genuine interest, I probably would have thrived. But I obeyed my father and it was a flop.

Lessons Learned

Ever the optimist and with the natural grit that I discovered I had, I forged ahead. I was not used to failure but I had the wisdom to look for the silver linings after the fact.

Here are some of the lessons I learned from my experience with failure:

• Imperfection is normal. You are not here on earth to be perfect so it's not the end of the world if you fail here and there (even if it seems like the end of the world at the time);
• Failure teaches humility. There is nothing more obnoxious than arrogance and egoism. My approach to learning revealed a certain amount of youthful hubris and I had to learn about failure to learn the value of hard work and figure out approaches to learning that worked for me;
• You are not your failures. My failures are not a measure of my value as a human being. Stuff happens. Sometimes the all-around conditions are not just not optimum, they are chaotic. Some chaotic background noise was always happening in the background of these failures and, in my youth, I was unable to discipline my emotions enough to be able to thrive regardless of background noise;
• What's the message? When you fail, look for the message. For me, it was clear that my future neither lay in science nor philosophy. What does your failure tell you? Where do you need to course-correct? Do you need to pivot someplace? What habits or protocols can you put in place to mitigate against a repeat failure?;
• If at first, you don't succeed, try try again. While grades matter, in the real world, failures might mean a bad review at work or getting the sack. Or, it could mean that you need to reboot your entire work life - you might just not be cut out to be a lawyer, a marketing specialist, whatever it is you're trying your hand at. And that's the wonderful thing about being an adult in the free world - you can pivot - it might take some wrangling, but you can change jobs, change relationships, change cities/towns/countries, and try again;
• Life is short. What I learned in life so far - especially having lost my father and my younger sister - is that life is short. Stressing about being the best or worst will only ruin your journey. Life is not about being the best or the worst. It's about a whole range of priorities, personal values, ethics, strengths and skills, and human relationships. Are you a good person? Are you exceptionally good at one thing that brings you and the world joy? Are you a fantastic golfer but suck at math? Go where your strengths and joy are. Enjoy the ride, don't flip out over failures that, in the scheme of things, won't be remembered and won't make an impact on your overall journey;
• Ask for help. As a young person, I had a lot of shame about not being perfect. I don't know if that was "first child syndrome" or if my fear of failure was just a primal emotion that we all feel growing up - I was prideful about being seen as stupid or not getting something quickly. And my pride caused me to fall. I see that now. What I ought to have done, and what I do now if I need help, is ask for guidance - whether it's from a friend, a professional, or a parent or sibling. It always helps to get a different perspective or, indeed, a plan of action you might never have thought of;
• Don't brood. It really sucks to fail. I hated failing chemistry and philosophy. But I had important lessons to learn about humility and following my own inner GPS instead of listening to my dad's recommendations that didn't resonate with me at the time. When you fail, depending on the extent of the failure, take a moment or two to mourn and then move on. Take the lesson, but dry your eyes and keep striving and living; and,
• Step back. When you fail, it could be because you're too myopic in your perspective. Take some time to zoom out and look at the mechanisms that took you to the point of failure. In the case of 11th-grade chemistry, I had a crappy teacher who seemed determined to fail me. In the case of philosophy, I wasn't taking myself seriously enough and didn't realize that my hating the course would most definitely lead to my failing it. What cog in your machine is not working for you? Sometimes you can only look at it from far away. If you need to and can, take a little trip to clear your mind. Close the laptop. Go for a walk. Change your habits. Mix it up and see if you're habits are letting you down somewhere; and,
• Own up and take action. When you fail something, big or small, take responsibility for your part in it and then take massive action to make the necessary changes. The information might not be immediately available to you - you might need time to process what has happened and pinpoint why (i.e., after you do the post-mortem), but once you figure it out, you must take responsibility for your part in the failure and then take steps to change if you can - with or without help.

I never think about the pain and shame of failing anymore. I have absorbed the lessons and moved on. I have a means of seeing where I could fail ahead of time and taking action to mitigate against failure. That is not to say I will never fail ever again in my life, but it is to say that should I experience failure in the future, I have a protocol to deal with it. That is part of being "savvy" both in life and commercially.