Dec 25, 2024 8:52:19 AM

The Gifts Of Failure

Today I come in front of you with a question. A question that has a tough answer. Did you know failure is a gift? I know it may be hard to believe, but it’s true. I was once that person who had a fear of failure. A fear of doing things out of my comfort zone. A fear of people seeing that I have flaws. 2024 was a year where I experienced a lot of failure. From failed relationships, failed partnerships, and failed business ideas, but when I shifted my mindset on them being failures to them being lessons that can make me better, I saw tremendous growth. Today I want to talk about the top 3 gifts failure has given me.

Embracing Lessons: How My Past Relationship Cultivated Wisdom & Understanding

The first gift failure has given to me is Wisdom & Understanding. Wisdom is the ability to use prior knowledge and past experiences to make decisions and understanding is the ability to fully grasp what is going on. To gain Wisdom & Understanding, I needed to take time to reflect on the situation. Reflect on what went wrong and how I could do better if I was put in this situation again. For example, this year I spent a lot of time reflecting on my past relationship. It wasn’t until I set time aside to reflect to see how I was a terrible partner. I didn’t know how to communicate. I didn’t know how to express my feelings. I didn’t know how to listen to what my partner needed from me. But I understand it now. Because of me seeing this failed relationship as a lesson, in the next relationship, that person is going to get the Wisdom that knows how to handle tough conversations, the Wisdom that isn’t ashamed to cry, the Wisdom that knows how to listen to her needs.

From Reactive to Proactive: Gaining Visions Through Failure to See Risks & Plan Ahead

That leads me to my next gift of failure. After gaining Wisdom & Understanding, I gained Vision. Vision to see risks before they happen. Most people think that the test comes during the lesson, but that’s not always true. Sometimes God will put your test after the lesson to make sure you learned from it. This gift of seeing risks before they happen shifted me from being a reactive person to a proactive person. What I mean by this is that this year is the first year where I experienced failure and where something didn’t just come naturally to me. I pretty much coasted through high school, college, and corporate America with everything being easy for me. For more than 2 decades, everything always worked out in my favor so I never planned for bad things to happen. So when things went wrong for me this year I had to make decisions I wasn’t sure of because I didn’t plan. I was reacting. Now after learning my lesson, I plan for the good, the bad, and the ugly. I see things 5 steps ahead and when the problems arise, I respond differently because I planned for them.

From Setbacks to Breakthroughs: Harnessing Failure as a Catalyst for Personal Evolution and Innovation

The final gift I received from failure is the most powerful. After gaining Wisdom & Understanding and Vision to see risks before they happen, I started to become a different person. I started thinking differently. I started to innovate. In the know your why speech, I talk about how when I look in the mirror, I see my future self. The version of myself that fulfilled his mission from God and left his mark on the world. It’s the things that I go through today that make me into the person God wants me to be tomorrow. I’ve seen so much growth this year in my mindset, emotional intelligence, and how I carry myself through learning from my failures. I’m so different now that even if you met me 3 months ago, you would need to meet me again. That’s the power of failure.

Thank you for reading the gifts of failure speech, hopefully this gave you a different perspective on failure and gave you some strength to start fighting back at life. Have a great holiday.