My first failure was one of the my most impactful experiences, but still painful.
At the young age of 18 I chose to give up a dream to attend and graduate from a service academy.
While I could have let this failure define me, I chose to take another path and learn from this.
Life is a series of failures that can lead to even greater success. The key ingredient is to learn why you failed and then move ahead to gain even greater accomplishments.