Winning while losing

Have you ever lost? Ever not gotten the position you wanted?

I have. And I will use it as inspiration.

See, if you read my post last week you'll see that I had applied for a promotion at work. I was a community reporter for the Irvine World News (that is owned by the Orange County Register). I applied for a daily position and was denied (but I was promoted to hybrid reporter - meaning half daily, half community).

Was I upset? Sure. I wanted the job.

But getting or not getting the job should not be my focus. It may have taken me about a week to figure that out - but now I know it is not what you get, but what you do with what you get.

Now let me take you into my past to show what I mean.

When I started college I joined a program called Learning Alliance - a program that puts the scrubs in the same classes to help them meet others and learn about the campus. The program pretty much saved my college experience: I missed the second and third weeks of my first year of college because my dad died. The connections I had in the program meant friends in most of my classes took notes for me, called to check in on me and helped me get through the tough time.

So in my second year of college I applied to become one of the mentors for Learning Alliance - because the program helped me so much. I was not picked.

I walked back to my car on campus feeling like such a loser. On my way a tree caught my attention - someone had clearly cut off one of its branches.

But as I walked by the tree I noticed something really interesting - the branch where cut off grew in the opposite direction and was the only branch with flowers. Note, branch is on the left in the photo.


It was inspiring. I realized at that moment that not getting picked to be a mentor was only a failure if I treated it as such.

The building behind that tree was SSPA - the journalism department was on the underground floor. I walked down the steps, took a breath and walked into the Daily 49er office without taking one journalism class yet. I started writing for the paper and four and a half years later I graduated as editor-in-chief of the paper. That newspaper was the highlight of my college experience.

The point of my sappy story is this: when you don't get something you want don't let it stop you, use it as inspiration.