THE BEST
OF YOUR LIFE
TURNING POINT
By Jane Pauley
Success
Is Messy
That big flop could turn
out to be your big break
BEAT
DEFEAT
Never fear failure.
Consider this
expert advice
A week into my sophomore year of high
school in 1965, I entered cheerleader
tryouts with the confidence of a returning
veteran. The scene is as vivid as a movie—a
silent movie, because silence was the sound
of my name not being called. Girls were hugging. Some were crying; I was one of them. But
that day I tried out and failed was the luckiest
day of my life, because I was free to try something
else. Free to discover a talent I never knew I had.
I joined the speech team. A month later I brought
home a trophy labeled Extemporaneous Speaking:
First Place. Current events were my specialty.
The first thing I did after
finishing college was flunk a
typing test, a screening that in
those days—for a woman—was
practically a prerequisite for
a job. Eleven words a minute!
But 1972 was an election year
and I’d been a political sci-
ence major, so I found a job in
politics, where I was immediately installed at a
typewriter! My morning began with a stack of
envelopes to address, and it ended with a waste-
basket overflowing with misaddressed envelopes.
My desk sat outside the office of the state party
chairman. A reporter could casually chat me up
while hoping the boss might step out and make a
little news. But one day a TV reporter delivered
some news—for me. The newsroom had an opening for a reporter: “a female-type person,” he said.
Though I had neither experience nor a degree in
ISOLATE THE
INCIDENT
Failure is fleeting. “Don’t see
it as reflecting
on a permanent
quality of yourself,
such as your
intelligence,” says
Carol Dweck,
Ph. D., author of
Mindset: The New
Psychology of
Success.
1
Trying
times
are times
to try new
things.
journalism, I had been a champion extemporaneous speaker in high school. It took a while to connect the dots, but the arc of a successful career
began on the day I failed to make cheerleader.
Failure can be a step in the right direction.
Many of us face an uncertain future in these
trying times. But trying times can be a time to
try something new—to stretch the boundar-
ies of your comfort zone. As Herminia Ibarra
writes in Working Identity: Unconventional
Strategies for Reinventing Your Career, most
successful career transitions involve “a messy
trial-and-error process.”
In 2004, I tried a new TV format, a daytime
talk show. It barely lasted a season. Recently I
returned to the working world. In my new
office the first thing I see is a poster-size picture
of myself. It’s not a vanity thing. It was a public-
ity shot for the daytime show that failed! Before
The Jane Pauley Show even started, I told my
kids that its odds weren’t great but that my defi-
nition of success was having the courage to try.
The picture inspires me to keep trying. ;
2
CHANNEL
POSITIVITY
View the experience as a
learning opportunity, suggests
M.J. Ryan, author
of AdaptAbility:
How to Survive
Change You Didn’t
Ask For. “The trick
is to have what’s
called a growth
mindset. Ask:
‘What can I use
from this to create success?’”
3
ADJUST YOUR
SIGHTS
To boost your
odds of success
next time, break
the effort into
doable chunks.
Create challenging, clear, specific
goals—and have
a deadline, says
theorist Edwin
Locke, Ph.D.
—Julia Winkler
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEF T: ANDRE W ECCLES (S T YLIS T: ANN CARUSO—THE WALL GROUP; HAIR: JAMES MCNALLY/
MARIO DIAB SALON; MAKEUP: GREGG HUBBARD); MARK LUND HOMEROOM (PROP STYLIST: LISA EDSÄLV) ( 2)
YOUR LIFE
CALLING
Watch Jane’s Today show segments—about people
reinventing their lives—at aarp.org/jane.
