I was a competitive kid, and some classroom rivalries pushed me to better grades than I might have achieved otherwise. However, I was also a perfectionist, and any “A”s that came without a “+” beside them started to feel less like an almost-perfect achievement and more like a glaring signal that I’d missed the mark. 

I hated failing, and when you combine that with believing anything less than the top spot is a loss, you have a recipe for disaster. I hid my failures, refusing to talk about them, terrified that if people knew I wasn’t perfect, they wouldn’t like me anymore. Not only is this a good way to spend a lot of time being angry with yourself, but it turns out it makes the feeling of failing even worse. 

On the other hand, being open and honest about your failures actually makes us more resilient and improves self-belief. So in 2020, I wrote my first Failure Resume as an experiment. 

And now, I’m revisiting it and sharing it with you. 

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CREDITS

Produced by Inventium

Host: Amantha Imber

Production Support from Deadset Studios

Episode producers: Jenna Koda and Liam Riordan

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

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