I’m baaaaaaack!
For the last month, I’ve dedicated significant time and energy to finishing a research manuscript, which is also a requirement to advance to Fellow in the American College of Medical Practice Executives. So that’s why I have been MIA…..I know I didn’t provide any warning, or even let you know why I was going to be gone. But I hope all 17 of you will forgive me in time.
I’m waiting to hear back from the ACMPE, and in the meantime I’m a complete stress-case. But, it’s particularly gratifying to be at this point because, the actual process of researching and writing a 56-page academic paper was significantly more challenging now that I have been away from graduate school for more than a decade. I am rusty to say the least. So clearly there was good reason that I procrastinated this project for……oh, about six years now!!
The paper’s title was “Successful Medical Construction Projects: On Time, On Budget, On Target.” In developing it, I pored over scores of journal articles, and reflected on a number of the most impactful learning experiences that I have had over the course of nine or ten medical construction projects throughout my career. Both provided a nice glimpse of “best practice” outcomes and also lessons learned.
In fact, I was reminded that often the most valuable learning experiences come not from projects that went off without a hitch (because it’s construction we’re talking about, and perfection is not exactly realistic), but the ones that didn’t go as planned.
This is me getting a taste of my own medicine, as I often encourage you to embrace your flops. I feel these experiences, though painful in the moment, provide the greatest learning opportunities – their power being so profound that I dedicated an entire category of posts to my splats, crashes, bombs and other shortcomings.
Sometimes, it’s only through failure that we truly experience how to succeed.
Still need some convincing? Remember that Nike commercial with Michael Jordan? The one where he talked about how he’s missed more than 9,000 shots in his career, lost 300 games, and missed the game winning shot 26 times? Do you think of “His Airness” in this manner – as a big, fat LOSER? I doubt it.
In the words of the great one: “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Science more your thing? Albert Einstein reminds us “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
And, perhaps one of the most-quoted statements about failure comes from Sir Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
What “greats” and their failures inspire you? And how have you personally learned from and were motivated by a failed experience?
If nothing comes to mind, or you don’t care to re-live the experience, rethink your perspective on what it means to fail and what it takes to be successful. That way, the next time you find yourself falling head first, you, too, can sprout wings like His Airness, brush yourself off and get back into the game stronger than before.
