This past Saturday, I started what will be my final class in the Suffolk MBA program.
I'm not going to lie. I woke up with severe anxiety. I woke up at about 5 am on Saturday morning, thinking I might oversleep the 9 am start time. Thinking I might just ruin my chance to graduate in May. Clearly, I'm ready. I cannot pinpoint the exact source of anxiety, but suffice to say, it was there. I did not really go back to sleep. I made it to class on time, Starbucks Passion Tea in hand, ready for for 9 hours.
I'm taking a class on Failure this semester. Failure is such a part of all of our lives - unfortunately we all experience it at some point. But how do you manage it? How do you pick yourself up off the ground after you fail at something and move on to find success? I love the idea of it. I love the idea of exploring it. I love discussing it. It's such a very personal topic to people.
I sat there for 9 hours on Saturday and I can say, it was a long day, but it didn't feel as long as I thought it would. I find myself extremely engaged in the topic. What is failure to my classmates? How do they define it? Two primary thoughts came out of Saturday's class - 1) we all define failure in different ways. What I feel I failed at, might not be seen in the same light in someone else's eyes. and 2) Failure makes us all feel the same: rejection, alone, despair, disapointment. Like a total Failure. Everyone goes through it. We certainly all handle it in different ways though, that is for sure.
When I think about failing something, I more think about failure in my personal life, in my relationships. I've done well for myself business wise - I can certainly think of a few things that I haven't entirely succeeded at, but nothing I would equate as a total utter failure. But personally, I think there is quite a bit of failures and breakdowns in my relationships. I've failed as a best friend. I have failed as a girlfriend. I have often failed as a sister and on occassion, failed as a daughter. There are things I am not proud of, and I have not always handled certain situations in the best way possible. But hindsight is 20/20. What I am learning while I explore the concept of failure is that, failure is failure and it doesn't matter whether it's personal, professional or in your relationships, how you handle it at it's core remains the same.
I handle failure by trying to gain perspective out of it. Was I wrong? How wrong was I? What can I learn from it? How can I be better next time? Was the failure out of my control? Did I do everything I could to try to keep it from failing? If so, I chalk it up to timing. Timing isn't always in your control. In life, there are just some things that you cannot control and its not worth dwelling on. I try to sleep well at night knowing that I wake up and do the best I can every day. Maybe you're good, but the other candidate was just a bit better. Maybe you're an amazing girlfriend, but it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe the failure was all your fault. What can you do to fix it? It's a concept that I cannot wait to further scuba dive into over the next few weeks.
My last three classes in my MBA program have not been business specific. They have been classes that focus on Self Awareness. Thinking about creativity and how to be more of a creative thinker. Leadership and being self aware of who you are as a leader - strengths, weaknesses and the life. And now, introspectively looking at yourself and how you handle your biggest disapointments in life. I think these classes are more important that any finance or stats class. Tomorrow's leaders need to be self-aware and introspective. These classes are certainly forcing me to take a look inside.
Like being on a therapist's couch. Yikes!
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