school every year and of those 1.2 less
than 3% are of Asian descent well I have
the distinct honor of being the first
ever high school dropout in my family
yeah my dad didn’t applaud then either
so he even said he said fill this story
will become basically a cautionary tale
of woe to all the little children in
South Korea who misbehave
he said here’s North Korea and here’s
you you’re right there I thought oh my
goodness so one point 22.9 well I know
that there are other high school
dropouts in my small community but what
makes this story so compelling I think
is because just the sheer unlikely nosov
this happening you see I grew up in the
northern suburbs of Philadelphia a
two-parent household it was a good
school system one older sister no drug
or alcohol abuse relatively easy
childhood and I was planning on going to
an Ivy League school just like my older
sister and as a first generation
korean-american I was either going to be
a doctor or a doctor every opportunity
to succeed and completely just flubbed
it away so my talk this morning is is
really about rethinking or reframing the
way we look at failure and why I believe
everyone deserves a second chance now I
want you to think about the arc of your
career everyone fails right if you think
about it your career is a bunch of ups
and downs and ups and downs across the
way nobody makes it through life
error-free and if you’ve learned any
skill any instrument or any sport you’ve
learned through failure it was through
trial and error basically you are making
it up as you go you’ve learned and
you’ve relearned no matter what your
parents have told you you were bad at
something
at one point I remember my first job it
was for a CPA and consulting firm sorry
I wasn’t supposed to hear that it was
this for a CPA and consulting firm and I
was on a client prospecting meeting it
was me my managing partner and the
client CEO and my goal at this point was
to not say anything stupid
so supposed to be shadow don’t say
anything unfortunately there was a lull
in the conversation and the CEO turns to
me and he says well do you have any
thoughts or questions and without much
thought I blurted out do you hunt and
just to give you an idea the back side
of his office actually did look like
this
it was decked out with various levels of
mounted deer and animals that he had
killed even had a camouflaged frame
wedding photo see so he looks at me as
if I’m being ironic and I wasn’t I
didn’t have anything else to say and
then I say well did you catch one that’s
what I asked him did you catch one so
some of you are chuckling because you
know you know that people don’t catch
deer right you shoot them you kill them
you maim them you don’t catch them so it
was it was basically a wreck for the
rest of the afternoon I didn’t know what
to say I shut it down the good news is
later on two weeks later we did get the
engagement with that client but forever
from that point on I was the deer
catching guy with him so now I was
thinking about so as we were as we were
going through as I was progressing
through my career I was having these ups
and downs I pursued all the relevant
certifications I I got some promotions I
even want some awards but as I was
progressing through I felt a sense of
just not fitting in like something was
just not right I could do the job fine
but I never quite felt at home ever felt
that so I went back to grad school and I
started taking evening classes and I was
able to teach adjunct at various
universities and I fell in
with teaching I finally found my group
so here I was full circle from high
school dropout to college professor and
I used to look at my past failures with
the sense of awkwardness and shame like
I wouldn’t tell anybody about this but
now I see it as a sort of badge of honor
I was going from failure to failure but
I was learning some key lessons along
the way things like resilience humility
and how to work within my skill set so
my question this morning is what if we
fundamentally changed the way we look at
failure rather than trying to gloss over
or hide or even ignore our failures and
mistakes what if we saw them as stepping
stones to a better perspective most of
you are probably familiar with the
company 3m and if you’ve used scotch
tape or Scotch Guard or purchased
post-it notes you are actually a
customer of 3m but what most don’t
realize is they have over 20,000
different products and services in the
commercial and consumer realm 20,000 and
here is a quote from William McKnight
one of their longtime CEOs mistakes will
be made but if a person is essentially
right the mistakes he or she makes are
not as serious in the long run as the
mistakes management will make if they
tell people exactly how to do their jobs
uc3m allows their people to they even
encourage it the CEO has been noted as
saying we seek to increase our failure
rate by 10 percent each year
what CEO says that we seek to increase
10 percent stepping stones to a better
perspective now let me ask you here just
by show of hands who here doesn’t love
bubble wrap doesn’t OK security removed
that person or over there case
yeah bubble-wrap it’s incredible well
did you know that bubble wrap was
actually invented for interior home
design did you guys know this it was
meant to be textured wallpaper I know
what I’ll be so distracted I would just
be over at my friend’s house wanting to
randomly high-five the walls you know
just to pop the bubble paper
well well see they so that flopped then
they rebranded it the next year as
insulation material for your home and
for your office again it went nowhere
third year they finally rebranded it as
actually IBM first used it as packaging
material for its servers during delivery
and it took off now sealed air
corporation is worth over nine billion
dollars and has been in business in the
seal or the bubble wrap business for
over 50 years let me repeat that just in
case you missed it there’s a company
that makes bubble wrap is worth over
nine billion dollars and has been in
business for over 50 years now I believe
that these multi-billion dollar
companies the reason why they’re so
successful is they encourage their
people their employees to make mistakes
and learn from them we’ve got to change
the way we look at failure see the truth
is we as a culture are consumed with
this idea of winning and winning at all
costs are we it’s all about the numbers
who has the best quarterly numbers who
sold the most units who has the most
points who has the most championship
rings but I don’t think deep down inside
people are moved by numbers and
statistics they’re moved by stories and
you know what’s better than a great
number story a great comeback story I
want to introduce you to Dale hearts
he’s the one on the right he’s got the
sunglasses
he started a nonprofit that supports
develops and trains the homeless to
start their own businesses and on the
left is Frank Wilkinson and in 2015
Frank was a broken man
he his fiance had died unexpectedly and
tragically he had lost all his money he
was he was basically going through a
really really rough time and then he met
Dale and N Dale he met somebody that
that finally believed in him so he
coached him for an entire year and there
were some setbacks and challenges but
Frank
Frank’s stuck with it and a year later
well 18 months later Frank is now the
proud owner and operator of pro help and
more a commercial cleaning and
construction business and I want to ask
who here isn’t rooting for this guy
right and he’s gone through so much
severe depression struggling with
alcoholism all of these things and here
he is starting his own business because
somebody believed in him somebody gave
last one is we all have constraints I
read one time that Gary Larson is very
familiar with Gary Larson and his work
far side far side comic okay well Gary
Larson he actually had to change the way
he drew his cartoons you see the popular
comic strips of the time had three
panels in which they could deliver the
punchline
whereas Gary had to be proficient with
one so here was his constraints he
wasn’t that great of an artist he would
be the first to admit that secondly he
had to fit all have his art into one
panel where everybody got three shots at
it so he had to learn things like
patterns and dimensions and perspectives
he also had to use an economy of words
to get the story basically in one or two
sentences the audience fell in love with
it though he has sold over 45 million
copies of his books and his collections
he’s one of the most prolific
I started I told you the story about
Frank Wilkinson I did want to end with
this with with a note from Mattie
Wilkinson after the story had been
published she this was her this is what
she writes thank you so much for
publishing this article this is my
father Frank Wilkinson I have not seen
him in two years I didn’t know whether
he was alive or dead and since this
story has come out I’ve reconnected with
him and I’m so happy to have him back in
my life I’ve been looking for him for
what seemed like forever thank you so
much for reuniting my family and I back
with our dad I guess in my experience
and in Frank’s message I want to share
is it doesn’t matter how far you’ve
fallen today is an opportunity to get
back up everyone deserves a second
chance
I told you the deer catching story
almost of it here’s the rest of the
story my boss and I were driving back
that afternoon and I was pretty much
crushed I didn’t know how to recover
from it and he knew I was down so he
said Phil he said three things he said
film number one don’t dwell on it number
two be yourself we hired you for a
reason and it wasn’t for your deer
hunting skills and number three get
ready because we have a busy day
tomorrow so let me translate that for us
today number one don’t dwell on your
past mistakes everyone learns through
failure number two be yourself everyone
has constraints number three if you’ve
fallen it’s time to get back up everyone
deserves a second chance and it’s time to start living yours thank you