Celebrating Failure

As the first day of freshman year was approaching, I made a few goals for myself. One of them was to making connections with business school faculty, top employers, and top business school students. I was told that it’s not what you know, but rather who you know. That made sense, as it was a way to ‘stand out’ from the crowd. I must have forgotten reality when I made that goal because I am what most people would call an ‘introvert’. At various social events and career events, I was still the same awkward kid I was back in high school. I tried establishing connections with colleagues and faculty, but my social awkwardness got in the way. I didn't know much about small talk with acquaintances.

My first semester was pretty bad. I found myself trying to get involved in so many organizations that my involvement became rather shallow. Also because of that, my grades were not too great. Every Astronomy exam was a nightmare and I was losing focus on school. The combination of social awkwardness and feeling inadequate due to mediocre academic performance really affected my goal of establishing meaningful professional connections. In the end, I failed in even starting that goal. I spent most of my spring semester focusing only on school. It paid off, since my grades made improvements. However, since I spent a lot of time on academics, I still failed in regards to networking.

I learned that I can’t just change who I am in a short amount of time. As a result of that failure, I definitely learned what my capabilities are and are not. Also, I realized that planning every little single detail of your future just sets you up for disappointment. It’s good to have broad goals, but being too specific about them made me forget how life can sometimes be unpredictable. I was also trying to become something I wasn’t, and as a result, I lost what it meant to be me. It sounds kind of cliché, but the failures that I experienced in my first couple of semester taught me what I need to work on. From the failures of my first couple of semesters, I learned that forcing myself to be involved in things just so that my resume could look “good” was a waste of my time and energy. Instead, I want to work on getting involved in things that I am truly motivated towards for reasons other than “it’ll make me look good.” I found that if I am genuinely interested in doing something, then the whole “awkward introvert” characteristic is not a hindrance.

Failure is difficult. It’s embarrassing. Obviously, no one likes to deal with it. We all want to seem perfect. However, it’s how we learn. One can either view failure as an end, or one can view failure as part of a process. I guess in order to relate failure to the mindset of entrepreneurship, one should view it as part of the opportunity-seeking process. This class has changed my perspective on failure by forcing me to put myself out there and start conversation with total strangers on campus. It also taught me not to sweat the small failures all the time, but rather be proud of my accomplishments.