By my measure, I’m a failure. I played baseball for eight years, and I only managed a handful of hits. I played football for two years, then dropped out because it was “too hard." I spent my first two years of high school sitting in my basement and playing video games. I flunked out of my school’s Gifted and Talented program. I tried out for Allstate and other special programs and never qualified. I joined the cross country and golf teams and never played on the starting teams -- or the junior varsity teams. I joined my speech team and didn’t get to a major competition. I got to college and wasted over half of my money on worthless clothes, games, and accessories. If anyone said I’ve had a lot of success, I’d laugh.

But am I really a failure?

I learned how to be a team player and to encourage others while playing baseball. I realized that football wasn’t for me, but I also realized that it didn’t define me. I became an incredible storyteller after learning all about storylines in my video games. I flunked out of Gifted and Talented, but earned my spot again after putting in a lot of hard work and effort into the next quarter. I never had a winning audition, but I grew close to both my friends and instructors during the process -- and they consoled me after I lost. I may have been a terrible runner and golfer, but I lost 20 pounds in just two months after joining the cross country team. I may have bombed all my speech performances, but I made friends that I still talk with to this day. I blew through $800, but afterwards I learned to balance a checkbook and create a budget.

Everyone encounters failure in their lives. Failure is evident everywhere -- in relationships, in academics, in sports, in competitions, in business, or even in your own mind. I’d know -- I’ve failed in literally all those areas! But life doesn’t just stop there. In fact, some of the greatest people in the history of the planet failed over and over again. Abraham Lincoln drove his family’s business into the ground before he became one of the greatest American presidents. Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school varsity team and went on to be the greatest basketball player of all time. Thomas Edison was told he was mentally challenged before he invented the light bulb. Over and over again, those who fail well, succeed well.

We all encounter failure, loss, and disappointment. It’s a fact of life. But will you let your failures define you? Will your past hold you back from your future? Or will you step up, use your failures as footholds, and show the world something it’s never seen before?

I’ll say this, one failure to another -- don’t be defined by your past. Be defined by your success. Do more. Be more.