Be thankful for the failures in your life

In May of 2015, Henry Meredith delivered the valedictory address to his graduating class at the Virginia Military Institute. He chose an unusual one word theme - he said the Institute gave them “Failure.”

Henry Meredith was  exactly right.

From the minute I matriculated for cadre (‘Hell Week”) at the Virginia Military Institute, the system gave me failure - plenty of it. A freshly minted high school graduate, son and brother of two graduates, I carried all of the confidence and arrogance of youth.

At the end of the registration process, a cadet told me I was assigned to “Echo” Company and to proceed down the concourse and someone would meet me there. Not yet schooled in the military phonetic alphabet, however, I heard “F” company. I had soon frustrated a cadre corporal and sergeant, wasted their precious time, and spent most of the next thirty minutes on my face in the front leaning rest position explaining my mistake, apologizing for my poor hearing, and paying for my lack of attention to detail.

This is not something one forgets.

Almost forty years later, I have come to appreciate the failures in my own life - for it was in failure that I learned life’s most valuable lessons.

I accepted a job with a boss nicknamed the “Barracuda.”

I tried to change people who weren’t getting the job done rather than literally change people.

I became an “accidental investment banker” because I could not raise a mezzanine fund.

The list goes on - just ask my wife.

In an age when helicopter parents vex over insults to a child’s self esteem, soccer associations don’t keep score, and failure is denied, what seeds are being sown? What lessons are lost? If “judgment comes from experience, and experience from poor judgment,” are we raising a generation of fools?

So I’m thankful for the pain and failure in my life. I am proud of the hardships we’ve overcome. I see the opportunity in every problem.

Give thanks for the failures in your life - if you are reading this, you have survived 100% of them so far.

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