Why early failure does not mean forever failure.

In 2012, in search of better weather, Roberta and I abandoned our Manhattan residence, buying a house and relocating to Napa.? I call it the second-best decision I ever made (it’s easy to guess what the first one is).

We love our by-the-water home, but if all goes as planned, we soon will decamp to a different residence.? I’m now approaching my mid-70s; it makes sense to simplify.? Simplification means more liquidity, less worry.? It means renting a house, not owning a home.

Simplifying also means winnowing and discarding, ridding ourselves of items we no longer need, use, or want.? Among other tasks, we worked our way through two file cabinets of easy-to-part-with records and reports accumulated over the better part of a lifetime. ??

Some things, however, you do not discard.

One of these you see above: ?Bobby’s Compositions book for Ms. Rafael’s second grade class, a priceless bit of personal history.? (Note:? everyone called the growing-up me “Bobby,” a fractured diminutive I found embarrassing; at 24 I jettisoned it for the more preferable “Robert.”) ?If you were to turn the page, you would see the book is designated as a “Lesson Boob,” foreshadowing seven-year-old Bobby’s problem with language.

Here’s a graded test, one of many that demonstrated Bobby’s struggles with English.? The problem grew so acute and worrisome, that summer Bobby’s parents paid for a qualified and capable private tutor, someone who could help.? Regular learning sessions largely supplanted a season almost entirely devoted to outdoor play, focused on teaching Bobby how to spell.

Did it work?

It took years of effort, a second tutor during high school, punctuated by repeated setbacks large and small, with one graduate-school teacher casting a cold eye on one of my assignment papers, commenting, “I am not wild about your writing style,” but considering where I was compared with where I now am, I’d say yes. ?

Improvement required consistent dedication to process, slow, painful, and often disappointing, which yielded progress, raising a question:? why did someone who was verbally challenged emerge as a published author and resident deck swami, adept at all forms of writing for commerce?

The teachers didn’t change how they taught.? The student did.

Driven by fear, motivated to improve, with the help of we-won’t-give-up others, I became better at learning. ?Looking back on it, it was about developing the equivalent of muscle memory; the more I learned, the more determined to learn more I became.? Instead of treating my mistakes and missteps as failures, I began to see them as opportunities to get better.?

My first job out of college was working for Ron Hendren, who at the time led George Washington University’s PR office.? One day Ron dispatched me to the ?school’s Registrar office to look up the backgrounds of a couple of soon-to-graduate students.? I did so, but then took a detour, locating my own record in the seemingly endless rows of filing cabinets.?

In it I discovered a letter of assessment from my high school, projecting I would be a 2.0 GPA (grade-point average) student – essentially a “D” – with commentary that sentenced me to a life of less-than-mediocre professional performance.

I had just graduated "with distinction" and as a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa, having the highest grade-point average among students in my major, along with being a Danforth scholarship nominee.? I was at the start of my prove-them-wrong journey.

There is a disclaimer financial service institutions commonly invoke with investors: ?"Past performance is not a predictor of future success.“?By extension, it is not a predictor of future failure either.

The next time you are thwarted by setbacks, stymied in pursuit of a career, or generally struggling to succeed, remember how this phrase applies to me, and how it absolutely should apply to you.

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