"By seeking and blundering we learn." Goethe

“Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward,” tweeted Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, after the SpaceX Starship exploded in a fireball above the Gulf of Mexico. Elon Musk declared it "such a great day in so many ways," celebrating the opportunity to improve, learn from failure and move forward productively.

I grew up at GS in a syndicate role, committing capital on new issue bond deals. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, primary debt markets operated in a different fashion to today, with corporations asking dealers to bid for these deals. To win with too aggressive a bid resulted in a "winner's curse" and, often, inventory losses. To this day, I vividly remember the life lessons associated with an overly aggressive bid for $2 billion 10 and 30-year telecom bonds, where Day 1 investor demand was close to zero and the resulting loss substantial. An excruciatingly painful, Frank Fabozzi-esque bond math lesson in the value of a 30-year basis point.

The ignominy of being summoned to the Head of Global Markets' office to explain the expensive mistake – a long walk of shame, seemingly lasting forever, across the cavernous trading floor. Colleagues rubbernecking to stare at me like a catastrophic car crash; concerned but unable to look away. Despite my fears of a fatal outcome, my boss lifted my spirits by delivering a master class on his own past trading blunders and his process of learning from mistakes. Somehow I survived and became a more thoughtful capital committer and empathetic manager as a result.

Michael Jordan famously championed a similar mindset: “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”