Jeff Bennett's Blog

The following quote is an excerpt from President Obama’s much talked about and debated speech to school children yesterday.  I am not going to fan the debate whether he should have had the speech or not.  I am simply going to say that this is a good message for all of us…no matter what our age.

“..the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.  That’s OK.  Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.”

In this society “instant gratification” and a “fear of failure” is pervasive.  Success is seldom achieved instantly.  Failure is never our goal…but it is ok to fail sometimes…it is actually helpful in the learning process.  As the President cites in his message, success is generally the result of mastering something after several failures.  We must focus on growing, learning, reaching…we will fail along the way…and this is ok.  We must persevere after failure and take the learnings forward.