26A – Celebrating Failure

And baring my soul it is! This semester was exponentially difficult. While I knew going in that this was not to be a difficult class, I did understand it required working ahead as assignments required a substantial amount of thought and analysis. It also requires a student to free their minds from traditional ways of thinking. Fast forward to late March/ early April when disaster began to strike. I cannot blame the Covid-19 crisis on 100% of the reasoning for my faltering grade but the combination of the whirlwind of events associated with it compounded the fact that I hadn’t been as proactive as I knew I needed to be initially in order to be successful. And as Murphy’s Law indicates the whole house of cards fell in. Having to deal with managing a small business, kids and out of state family members in New York through the crisis without affecting my grades would have taken a clone.

While still going through the hysteria, I have finally settled into a routine, something that was very difficult to create in the early goings. Short story long, the lesson learned was what I’ve always know which is never take time for granted. While I know this was a unique circumstance, I am not the type to ever accept defeat. Unfortunately, I lost a couple of weeks of productivity that I am unable to get back and thus I am more than annoyed. I try to balance my stress for success with the fact that my family members and I are still alive.

Failure is something I don’t accept very well. First off, I’m very hard on those around me that find refuge in making excuses for their short comings. As such, I am the first person to acknowledge my own. I am usually very hard on myself and have an internal mechanism to deprive myself of creature comforts when I let myself down. This class has taught me immensely about failure. The way the curriculum was set up in my opinion was to create a level of diligence through repetition. My outlook on entrepreneurship has also changed substantially. Even in this crisis, I find myself finding tunnel vision in thinking of what new insights are to be garnered, and what innovation can compliment it. As far increasing my risk tolerance, I have already begun. I am now trading in commodities as a result of  the crisis and most likely should be focused on the end of times as most are!