How Failures Taught Me that I am not A Failure?

“The only failures are those who fail to try.” Lester B. Pearson

When I heard this quote some years ago I thought that it was too idealistic and impractical.

At first, I perceived life was only about competitions; survival of the fittest; or simply being the best by defeating others. If not, then you are not successful in life.

Of course, it was completely a wrong mindset, but, after losing many competitions, rejected at my dream companies and scholarships, incurred losses in many business and projects, I started to believe that I was a complete failure just because I was not able to turn my bucket lists and life plans whatsoever into reality.

Besides, seeing my friends and peers reached my so-called targets in social media made me become more anxious and start to self-blame. During that time, I had many targets since I had not found any clear life purposes yet.

I am a competitive person and I am not shy to admit it. I grew up in a very small village called Kencong in Jember, East Java, Indonesia. Since I was in kindergarten my parents invested so many resources for me to study at nearby cities. Moreover, I was had to live independently since I reached the age of 12, only to get better access to education. That is the reason for me to always maximize every opportunity because I know how much effort my parents have invested in me.

My dream is to become a technopreneur who is someone who collaborates technology to empower society through value-creating business. I started to have this dream since I was young, it became vivid especially after I started to join several digital startups during my college journey. I also started to create my own food business starting from becoming banana chips resellers, until now I have 8 branches in the Greater Jakarta area. 

During my study at the Faculty of Economics and Business University of Indonesia (FEBUI) I experienced many ups and downs; in business, academic achievements, and extracurricular activities. I tried several businesses started by creating my own electronic calculators, buying beverage franchises, consignment with cooperation in my campus, and many more. Yes, I failed so many times, I lost millions of rupiahs. Nevertheless, I always see it as a learning process and try to do it better next time.

Long story short, I met with one of my friends from XL Future Leaders family, Kenny, when I was really worried about my future and experienced a quarter-life crisis. What I learned from our 3 hours conversation is that having a mindset that you are just mediocre is really helpful. He said that my case was not new, many of his friends from prestigious universities also felt the same condition as me. The root causes are just two: expectation, and expectation; from both internal and external. Then he said something so powerful:

"If you didn't fight for what you want, don't cry for what you've lost.”

After that, I came back to my rooms and my mind started to reflect on many pieces of memories starting from high school until my university life. When I try to connect the dots I learn a simple message: the heart of man plans his way, but God establishes his steps. I have so many stories to support this statement and maybe I need to write it in a different essay, but in short, when I fail at one goal, I always got another unexpected gift.

I think the most memorable example was this surprising experience.

I randomly said this to my close friend; Danzel and Abraham that I want to try to become the Most Outstanding Student (MOS), at least winning some category at my faculty. Although I was only bluffing at that time, I also said that if there any Most Outstanding Accounting Student award I would win that award. At that moment, around early 2018 there is no such thing called Indonesia’s Most Outstanding Accounting Student.

Yet, in the next year around late May 2019, I heard from my lecturer that IAI (Ikatan Akuntan Indonesia) created the very first Indonesia’s Most Outstanding Accounting Student aka National Aspiring Professional Accountants (Accounting Student) Award and I was selected to represent my university. After 3 months of selection process and preparation, I won that title even though I never expected to win that at my bucket lists, since it did not exist at that time.

Because I set the goal to be the MOS in Competition and Research Paper category I tried to join and win as much competition as I could. During my 2.5 years in college, I joined 100+ competitions, conferences, scholarships, etc. and won 40+ awards from it. However, around early 2019 I tried to set a higher goal to be National MOS after seeing my senior Kak Evita Martha, and Jana at that moment.

I prepared everything, starting from enhancing my poor English skills, winning more competitions especially individual awards that are highly valuable for the MOS selection, actively involved in many organizations, and extend my research experiences. Throughout this process, I was able to meet many inspiring people that taught me invaluable lessons starting from Kak Melvin Hade, Bu Ari Pratiwi, Pak Sandy Permadi, Kak Mario Lasut, and many others.

Moving on to 2020, I started to feel anxious because there was not any news regarding the MOS selection process. When the announcement was final, I have contacted 8 lecturers to help me in case any of them was not available to help me. Turns out, 7 of them were available and fully supported me. During the writing process, I felt less productive since I have so many things in mind. About the pressure that I will have if I won that award (since my seniors from FEB UI both won at National Level two consecutive years), and whether I deserve that award or even just I deserve to try and dream it.

After a long struggle, both physically and mentally, I gave my 100% and turns out I won the MOS in Competition and Research Paper, Top 3 MOS in Entrepreneurship, Runner Up at MOS FEB UI. On that day, I wanted to cry but somehow I heard inner voices that said “I'm proud of you, you succeed.”

Succeed? What? I thought that I was failed. I won’t be able to try at the National level.

I rushed to enter my friend’s car and during the ride, he tried to calm me. I started to have a flashback event inside my head. In a split second, I finally realized that it was a blessing and privilege for someone like me to reach this far. When I read my very first bucket list at college orientation, only some of them are realized, but who knows if I reach those goals, certainly I will not be the same person as I am now.

To sum up, what I thought as failures and defeats are just how life forced me to learn something. I believe that every people have their own portion in life and it is unwise to compare your portion to others. What I learned now that the only fit measurement to your success is by comparing your present and your past.

Reflect to your own life; do you make any progress? Or you just stuck and going nowhere? For me, as long as we reach somewhere better we’ve already succeeded to learn from our mistakes and one step closer to reach our dreams.

I can only imagine my life without the help of many people that I met. God has sent me a great family, friends, lecturers, and acquaintances that made me able to be the one and only Rio Ferdinand Kiantara.

At the end of the day, I learned that there are no failures in this life. Sometimes when we don’t get what we want maybe it’s not meant for us. My wise friend used to say what yours will be yours and that’s true. What we can do is always try our best, have great motivation, and never afraid to fail; because you already tried it.