It's not failure - the courage to continue is what counts

When I was an undergraduate at New York University studying journalism, my favorite course was Intro to News Writing. We would pitch a story, get approval, go out to interview people, write it up, and submit it. My grades in the class were terrific and I was excited and inspired to go to class twice a week. One day I pitched a story about historic Jewish restaurants on the Lower East Side and interviewed a well known neighborhood character that gave me fantastic quotes. I worked hard on the story, which I thought came out great, and submitted it excited to see what my wonderful professor thought.

When it came back, there was a big fat "F" on the top. For a few moments I stared at it confused and upset, but when I looked closer, it turned out that I spelled the man's name wrong. That was cause for a failing grade. At the time I was angry, but don't you know that after that I was ALWAYS careful to get the spelling of my subject's name correct. Thank you for that lesson professor.

There have been several defeats (and luckily even more victories) since then, many with bigger consequences, but I've learned to lick my wounds and get back in the game having discovered a valuable lesson or two that I took to heart. What I've come to understand is that there really is no such thing as failure, as long as you're savvy, open, and humble enough to allow it to change you for the better.

Besides, if you're stretching yourself and pushing to try new things in order to reach higher plateaus, chances are you won't always succeed. And that's OK because it's those who try, progress, and sometimes fail who actually change the world. So, keep on going, keep on growing, and don't be afraid that it won't work because striving and improving is always an extremely worthy goal in and of itself.