You Will Never Grow if You Never Fail

In life, there is nothing more important than your mindset and attitude. Your perspective on any situation is your reality; you truly are the creator of your own world. I learned the importance of a strong mental frame throughout various experiences in my colligate career, many of which had several failures and disappointing moments. However, failure enabled me to grow. Putting myself out of my comfort zone and failing more made me realize the importance and failure and mistakes, leading to positive growth in all aspects of my life. If I am comfortable with being uncomfortable, there is no setting in which I cannot thrive in. 

 

Coming to the University of South Carolina from Southern New Jersey was a large challenge. I had never been to this part of the country before visiting the school, I did not know a single person walking onto campus on day one, and no one in my family or friends had ever traveled this far away for school. It was certainly a nerve-racking experience, but I embraced it. If I never put myself out there and diverted into my comfort zone, I would have never had the countless amazing experiences, relationships, and opportunities I did in my four years at school. My wide array of experiences at the University of South Carolina is certainly the largest factor in my immense personal growth since entering college; however, that is not to say there were not disappointing times and moments of failure. 

 

My freshman year was full of small mistakes, mishaps, and learning. Being a freshman on a campus of 35,000 students, living on my own for the first time, learning new material, and seeing new faces every day was truly an amazing experience, and I am thankful for it. I never feared putting myself in new experiences and meeting new people. Just like if you’re scared to fail, you’ll never learn a new skill; if you’re scared of how people will think of you, you’ll never build new relationships. You not only learn a lot about different people and ways of life as you accept new challenges, but you also learn a lot about yourself. I learned the importance of being more sociable and personable, and how many new experiences and opportunities open to you when you know more people. Never will I build so many deep-rooted relationships in such a small amount of time as I did freshman year. If I was scared to mess up or fail, I would have never set myself up to have the various experiences and leadership positions I did in the following years at school.

 

With COVID-19, online learning, and courses curriculum starting to ramp up, my sophomore year was full of challenges. My Management 250: Professional Communication course with Professor Jenkinson was probably the hardest course I’ve taken at USC. Classroom settings are almost impossible to replicate online and adjusting to this style of learning was certainly a challenge for me and my peers. This challenge only is greater when the course requires students to be participating and engaging throughout the entirety of the class. I struggled to understand the material of this course, received several poor grades on homework, and was wrongfully excused for cheating on a major assignment.  On top of the heavy coursework assigned throughout the semester, we were also given the entire semester for our final project. Our team, only being able to meet on Zoom, was required to build a formal business website, as shown in WTC Artifact #2. This took hours of meetings, trial and error, and persistence for a decent grade. It was my most stressful course in college, but looking back, this course did exactly what it was supposed to. After, I was confident I could communicate professionally in the business world in a wide array of scenarios and situations.  

 

My junior year overall was the most academically challenging at USC. While recruiting for banking internships and working as a Supplemental Instruction Leader, my upper-level Economics and Finance course work began. At the same time, I held the chapter treasurer within my fraternity and worked as an SI Leader. It was a difficult experience trying to juggle all my commitments inside and outside the classroom. It was evident that immense time management skills were required for me to be productive and succeed. Although there were bumps in the road, there was no reason to dwell on anything. Those who succeed understand failure is bound to occur. I learned the importance of being persistent and controlling my emotions when failing. Throughout the summer and fall, I applied to almost 100 different competitive internships. Networking and interviews were entirely new to me; I was rejected from every single program I applied to online. To my surprise, I was one of the final ten candidates for a JPMC Private Banking Summer Analyst role. Not only was wealth management my desired career path, but this program would also have been an amazing networking experience and almost guarantee a full-time job post-graduation. After a long interview process, I was not selected for the role. However, I never gave up and continued to network and call any person working in wealth management I had a connection. It was only through intentional networking efforts that I received an offer to work for Morgan Stanley this past summer. 

 

This shift in my mindset towards new experiences and failure also enabled me to take on new challenges fearlessly. When my best friend, Tyler, brought up the idea of creating a charity golf outing by ourselves, I don’t think he or any of my friends ever believed it would come true. Having experience managing several social events and functions with my fraternity, I knew this was entirely possible. Both of us had mothers that were diagnosed with breast cancer in recent years and Tyler and I became friends over the game of golf. This charity golf event was the perfect way we could bring our community together for a good cause. Starting from scratch, networking with others who had run successful golf outings was extremely helpful. Tyler and I were never afraid to reach out to anyone we knew who could be of assistance. Over months of work, setbacks, and stressful moments of doubt; the first annual South Jersey Breast Cancer Awareness Invitational raised $6,175 and had 70 players total, as shown in BTC Artifact #2. With a strong mindset in life, there is nothing you can do that is impossible.

 

Winners are simply those who never quit. I’ve learned throughout my time at South Carolina to not let worry or doubt creep into my mind during setbacks because there’s always something to learn from each experience, good or bad. You can truly never lose if you approach mistakes in this sense. Just like in sales, each “no,” you get puts you closer to getting a “yes.” This frame applies to every profession as everyone who wants to succeed will eventually face discomfort and failure, especially in business development roles. As I move forward in my professional career, I will keep this mindset. I will learn from all my mistakes and continue to embrace discomfort and new experiences.