It’s ok to fail at school… I did and I’m a Lecturer

When I left school I had a very bad overall position score (SAT equivalent). So bad that I am not going to tell you how bad it was. Some people know and they may spill the beans but I won’t. Let me just put it this way. In my final year I had eight subjects (let’s say) and I failed six of them. I did so bad that I got the fourth worse score you could get at the time. I was devastated.  Now I am a lecturer.  Remember… if you fail it’s not the end.  Here’s why.

You can come back from anything … except death

As Frank Sinatra said, ‘When I fall down flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race… that’s life!’  You are never so down that you can’t get up.  I know that some people think that a setback is the end.  It’s not.  I can tell you from my life experience that a bad result at school doesn’t mean the end.   What it means for you is that you may have a harder road than most as you pick yourself up BUT you will be all the better for it.   Those that have success without really trying learn a different sort of failure later on.  But that’s another topic. Unless you’re dead, gone and done get up and start again.

If you fall that means you can get straight back up

A man I have come to admire is my father.  That man has had more setbacks than anyone else I know.  Yet whenever he makes a mistake or does something stupid he turns it into an opportunity.  This may sound like a cliche but your greatest mistake so far, can be turned around into your greatest victory.  When I got my bad score I had real sook (as we say in Australia).  But, I realised after a while that life was happening and I needed qualifications to do something to make money.  So I found the worse college in Queensland and enrolled.  The college was so bad that my score was the cut off point!  What if I decided to take no action… I would not be where I am now.  Sure, I’m no millionaire but I am employed by a University Full Time and I handed in some revisions for my PhD thesis last week.  In April (God willing) I will be a doctor.  That’s another post for another day BUT if I can do it, so can you.

So what’s your choice going to be?

Life is full of losers.  Don’t be one of them.  Being a winner takes guts, faith, determination and courage but most of all it takes heart.  When life kicks you in the doodads you have two choices.  You either wind up what you’re doing and go home or you take a lesson from Steve Waugh (a great leader and a former captain of the Australian Cricket Team):

It doesn’t matter how pretty you look it’s how many runs you get. 

In other words: Get up and build a better life.  It’s my prayer that if you read this you will take what I have said to heart and begin to get up, dust yourself off and go on to glory.  I know you can do it.

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