Angus Blair: Failure 1.0
Monday, April 20, 2009 at 11:49PM This post is a bit depressing so you might want to skip to the end where I try to impart some wisdom from this mess.
The story so far
I spoke about it's merit a lot last year, but transparency is often a huge problem when shit hits the fan. I wouldn't have put this information up last month when applications were still flying around the place but I'm happy to be honest about it all now. Last year when I was a fresh idealistic student to Auckland University, I applied for and received an offer from Deloitte consulting. This was the only company I applied for and though I was ecstatic to receive the offer I do admit to feelings of incompleteness about it.
So when we got to November, this feeling of incompleteness crept over me. 2008 had been so good to me, for the first time in 4 years I was surrounded with friends that were actually like me, I was having a lot of fun and really enjoying the work I was doing everyday. The club scene was fantastic with opportunities abound for involvement if I stayed. All this combined the the ambition of an international PhD on the long term horizon, the Masters programme just made sense to me.
So I chose. I would pull out of my contract with Deloitte, in the middle of a recession, and pursue my masters degree as well. Despite all the reasons above, I'd be lying if that was all there was to it. Of course I wanted to try my hand at other more prestigious opportunities, coming back represented a chance to live the dream. And I went for it.
However this year didn't really go as planned, lots of scholarships were not on offer, because it seems a recession can get you even inside this ivory tower. What's more the job market is of course much worse. So the news finally broke this morning, I will officially not be working at Deloitte next year. In addition, none of the other four consulting applications I put through panned out as planned either. This essentially puts my ambition to go into consulting, an ambition that has driven my entire professional development 'til now, quietly to rest.
Tell me about a time you have failed?
This was the question I answered most poorly at the Deloitte Assessment centre last Thursday (Think 8 hours observation while we chat, solve cases, interview etc). I talked about my time on the New Zealand Tae Kwon Do team, coming 2nd in an Australasian invitational, but to be honest it's a bad story to tell, there is little to be learned from what happened. But I also realised I've been extremely lucky or quite oblivious when it comes to my experiences with failure. Before this year I haven't had many failures, at least none that I have been wise enough to rigorously reflect on.
Now, after the last few months, I have a better story, one truly worth learning from. Simply I think it goes as follows; sometimes in life we take risks that we assume don't apply to us. What's worse, we take psychological and practical precautions so we can at least partake in the illusion that we ourselves are not to blame.
I spoke to six mentors last year before making a decision to do my masters instead of take the job offer with Deloitte. But sometimes getting this sort of advice is an engineered fallacy, deep down I knew I could convince them all that I was making the best choice. I would rather lie to myself and them so as to at least create the illusion of consensus that I was making a good decision. Again, arrogant that since I thought it was a good idea they all should as well, better to convince them of that than be wrong.
Where to from here
When I look all around at my heroes and successful people in general. They've all had there fair share of setbacks but they somehow make them look like they were meant to be. It was Steve Jobs who said that it's only with hindsight that you can connect the dots and this was after flunking out of college and getting kicked out of a company he had co-founded, sure he was a millionaire, but kicked out nonetheless.
So it's my turn to make it look easy, or 'meant to be' as everyone keeps telling me. I don't believe in any higher power or fatalistic bullshit though now would be a good time to convince myself on it. But I do believe that good, talented people, know how to make the most of their failures. I'm not one of them yet, but this might be the time I become one.
Reader Comments (5)
Hey man, your drive and clear vision have always been something of an inspiration to me, so keep that up.
Sorry to hear the positions have fallen through in any case.
Very sorry to hear the turn of events and though my being sorry will obviously not change things, it is well-intended.
I'm not sure if things like these should even have the catchphrase 'meant to be' or 'made to look easy' attached to them. Who said life was easy or that life is complicated? Isn't that all subject to perspective anyway?
Perhaps this is the moment of your paradigm shift, a moment to create opportunities for yourself, to explore opportunities you would have possibly not considered at all.
What have we now when so-call failures come our way? The time we have in our hands. You can choose to redeem what you may consider lost time, effort and quite likely money - and it sounds like you are working towards that.
What has happened, has already happened. You have evaluated your actions, taken time to learn the lesson so look forward. Strive forwards, move forwards towards the prize that you put ahead of you and put the past behind you. Don't let this hiccup, this stumble keep you trapped. It hurts yes, it hurts the pockets and the pride yes. But you're still you and you have your whole life ahead of you. You are the architect of your own end, your 'destiny'. However you may wish to call it.
I am told, don't give up on your dream, even if you have to take a long detour. Let the tension between the desired future of tomorrow and the reality of the present be the force that drives you forward.
We can never know what the future brings, bad things happen to both good guys and bad. When it happens, the person who strives forward, is more likely to rise to the occasion.
Finally, I cannot say that I fully understand all you've been through but I truly hope that you will be encouraged.
Marie.
p/s Do send my warmest regards to the toastmaster clan.
This is a seminal moment in the life of Angus Blair. I'm incredibly excited for you. You're being stretched, shocked, dismayed, and questionned - questionned especially by yourself. And even though it feels like doors are slamming everywhere, there's infinite possibilities opened in their closure.
Hope, dream, dare.
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat". (Theodore Roosevelt).
You realise because your CV includes your web address that all your potential employers are aware of your blog and Twitter posts. You might want to reconsider what you write here because you come across like a total twat.
I'm totally aware that my web address is on my CV. But you could google my name as well if you want, most employers will.
If someone reads the content and thinks, like yourself, that I'm a total twat, then that’s absolutely fine. And if that's the case then don't hire me. But for anyone who feels the need to hide their online presence from employees, what are you actually hiding? Are you not yourself in interviews? Are you embarrassed as to what you're actually like?
Conversations about this are important, but I will remove any personal slander :-)