Famous People Fail!

“As soon as I arrived at Cambridge, I was convinced that I was going to fail,” my dear friend Roofi tells me over one of our weekly cups of chai.  She had arrived two weeks earlier for a graduate program and felt completely out of her league. She called her Abo with trepidation and worry, “Abo, I think I have to come home, I’m going to fail.”“So what’s the big deal if you fail?,” her dad said.And with those eight words the weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders.“People fail all the time,” he added, “famous people fail. At least you can say you failed from Cambridge!”Roofi stayed. And completed a PhD in Economics.“My father was amazing,” she says, “I didn’t think he’d say that because academics is such a big thing in our family.”“Abo always said the right things to me in moments of crisis,” Roofi says. “I don’t think he believed them, by the way,” she laughs, “but he made me believe them.”Day 3 wisdom 3: So what’s the big deal if you fail?