I am one of four kids, the eldest, born to two hardworking immigrant parents that always pushed us to

be better than them. I am the first of my family, not just immediate but extended, to graduate from high
school and college, while not being the oldest in our extended family. To this day I thank my mother for
always pushing me, some could say forcing me, to try things, to sign up for things that would push me
out of my comfort zone. “Failure will not kill you” was the one line that she would always tell me
whenever I would tell her that I was scared of not succeeding. Failure to her didn’t mean I wasn’t smart,
just that I had not yet fully figured out what to do. That by trying I would learn and eventually succeed.

A growth mindset says intelligence and ability is grown through effort, failures or setbacks are
opportunities for growth. Failures in experimentation are not seen as a knock on intelligence. (Sims
2011). A growth mindset thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a
heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Since I had been challenged
from a young age to not be afraid of failure, I definitely have had a growth mindset.

As you grow you tend to see that many people around you are afraid of failure and that failure is a bad
thing. I am not going to say that I have never been afraid of failure. When attempting things that I am
unsure of I still get nervous and think about what others will think of me if I fail. The thing that always
keeps me moving forward is know that failure is a part of life, something you can’t avoid no matter how
hard you try. I can learn from the failure though and that desire to learn and embrace challenges has
always kept me moving forward.

The biggest challenge I had to deal with growing up was persevering with my education when everyone
close to me, friends and cousins, were dropping out of school. Every year it was a challenge for an
introvert to get to know a new set of friends to find a new support system because the ones you
previously had were now gone. I knew though, that an order to be better than my parents I would have
to persist in the face of these setbacks and set the path for my siblings to follow. I wasn’t the only one
that grew up this way, so finding others with similar stories as me, kept me motivated to graduate high
school and attend to college.

Fail quickly to learn fast (Sims, 2011) and fail often in order to succeed sooner both are ideas that I have
used throughout my life. Not just growing up but in a professional setting. Experimentation and learning
from these experiments, the successful ones and the failed ones, have helped me to succeed in my
goals. Professionally as a project manager I have to take risk, and constantly place small bets to see what
will work and what will not. I have always believed that there is more to learn from a failure than a
success. Failures teach you unexpected lessons that successes sometimes don’t. So to me failure isn’t
the end, it is just something that teaches you a lesson. Something that you pick yourself up from and
you learn from.

The growth mindset has helped me become more open to experience and tolerant to ambiguity. Both
surveys done in class showed my results to be very high in these areas. I deal with ambiguity a lot at
work and being able to tolerate it has helped me be a great project manager. Now I do still prefer having
clear expectations because it is easier to focus on completing a task. While I am open to experiences I
have had to stop myself from trying too many things as I must first finish something before moving on. If
I don’t I end up with too many projects on my plate and none get completed.

These experiences have opened me to not have a truly preferred learning style. To me, it depends on
the material that is being learned that will guide me to how I will learn something. If I did have to choose
though, I would lean towards abstract conceptualization and reflective observation, so I would say my
learning style is assimilating. I like to take a concise logical approach. I like to watch and take time
reflect. I wouldn’t say I have the strongest preference to this learning style but learning through
research is something that I do enjoy.

All of these factors have prepared me to approach challenges characterized by dynamic complexity and
novelty with confidence and with no true fear of failure. The growth mindset, my openness to
experience, tolerance for ambiguity, and assimilating learning style, I feel have prepared me to take on
all challenges that I may face both personally and professionally. As the manager of my favorite soccer
team stated when his team faced a daunting challenge that no one believed he could overcome “fail in
the most beautiful way”, and that is something that I tell myself when facing challenges that look like
they have no solutions. From failure, great success can come.

Sims, P. (2011). Little bets: how breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries. New York: Simon &
Schuster Paperbacks.

Olver, J. (2015). Mindsets.