How Failure Can Help a Career
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Conventional wisdom suggests that failure or negative comments can be harmful or potentially damaging to the career trajectory of most people. While in many cases this may be true, sometimes they may have an opposite and unanticipated positive effect or benefit. This is certainly true for me.
Back in 1970, when I was a freshman in a mandatory first semester English Composition class, I clearly recall the time when the instructor decided to read aloud some of our first essays. Mine was selected and I swell with pride when my name was mentioned. I had fancied myself an excellent writer and I thought that she was going to use my essay as an example of outstanding writing. After reading my essay aloud, I expected laudatory comments and how wonderfully written it was. Imagine my shock, humiliation and shame when she excoriated my essay and used it as example of poor writing. I never forgot that moment and recall that at the time, I decided to “show” the instructor how wrong she was and dedicated the next 40 years to become the best writer that I could be. As many BioJobBlog readers may know, I am currently a professional medical/science writer. Despite my ability to make a living as a writer and no matter how many times I publish something, I never forget that moment in that long ago freshman composition class.
Until today, I thought that my experience was not common and somewhat unique. In her article entitled “How Insults Spur Success” Peggy Payne—a journalist and author of several books—tell a similar story of rejection and how it helped rather than hurt her. In Peggy’s case she was rejected at age 16 from a renowned summer camp for “brainy” teenage students. Despite her obvious successes as a journalist and author, like me, she has never forgotten the incident and like me, it continues to drive her to succeed. Likewise, she reports that her husband received a “devastating” F on his first philosophy paper in college. He has been a tenured faculty member for 35 years in the philosophy department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In all of our cases, we decided to “show’em that they were wrong about us. And, interestingly, I think that “we have been trying to prove them wrong our entire lives. While this may work for some of us, it may not be universally true for others. In any event, the thing that most of us fear the most is failure. However, as many successful persons will tell you is that it took failure for them to realize their true potential. This is certainly true in my case. While not getting tenure was an overwhelmingly devastating event, that one failure freed me to explore other opportunities and discover that I can do other things beside research and be happier doing them than I ever would have been if I had received a tenured faculty appointment!
The point that I am trying to make is that failure, while scary, can actually be a good thing and help to define a live more positively than success. So, the next time that things are not going well for you, take a moment and analyze your situation. Then, attempt to figure out how you can turn a negative comment or presumed failure into a potentially positive outcome. While it may take some time to accomplish this, it certainly gives you a goal to work towards and ambition generally breed success!
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!
Mark Senak, author of the incisive 
