How failure points you in the right direction

In life and at work, failure is inevitable.

What keeps me going is the mindset that failure is sometimes life's way of pointing you in the right direction to fulfil your 'glorious purpose'.

One example we can learn from is Tom Hiddleston.

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was an unexpectedly huge draw since he first appeared in 2011’s Thor.

What many do not know is that Hiddleston never auditioned to play Loki. Instead, he auditioned for month to play the main character, Thor.

The actor went so far as to train rigorously for the role, and did a screen test with blonde hair and Mjolnir.

While Hiddleston failed in his audition and was given a supporting role of Loki instead, he did spectacularly well and gave it his best shot.

This turned out to be an amazing move for both his career and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As Director Kenneth Branagh, who cast Hiddleston as Loki in the first Thor film, describes him:

As I reflect on my own life, I too recall a "Tom Hiddleston" moment.

I interviewed for Uber and went through 5 rounds in 2015. Thankfully I did not get the role as they exited Southeast Asia soon after. Not landing a role in policy or marketing also meant I would be guided down the pathway of joining the SaaS sector.

Similarly, I could not land a role in Hong Kong after graduation. However, staying in Singapore was also better for my career than Hong Kong. The city experienced a lot of issues and went through a lot of unrest after I left in 2013.

When dealing with failure, what I've found helpful are these three things

1. Be open to experience and what life has to bring you, don't stay overly fixated on one option. Failure is a redirection. It shows you where you shouldn't be. Failure is an opportunity.

2. Do your best at every opportunity and even if you may not get the one that you want, your good attitude and good will will lead you to others

3. Always focus on learning. Otherwise, you would just make the same bad decision when the situation occurs again. If we do not learn from our mistakes, life has a way of teaching it to us again and again.

Hope this post is useful for anyone going through a failure in their professional and personal life

Curious, what was one failure in your life that pointed you in the right direction?

What should you do if you encounter something unethical at work?

You join a startup as a software engineer and got promoted to director of engineering.

Then you learn that the company is doing something fraudulent. What do you do?

Hopefully, not this:

At cryptocurrency exchange FTX, an engineering director got direct evidence in September 2022 that there was almost certainly fraud happening: that Alameda Research (a separate hedge fund from FTX) had taken customer funds from FTX and lost them.

Alameda Research should have never had access to FTX customer funds.

At this point, this engineering director had a choice to make: immediately stop assisting what looked like potential fraud, or to become an aid to them.

The smart thing would have been to talk immediately to a lawyer and get professional advice.

Instead: this engineering director talked to the founder; and decided to stay to "help clean up" the mess. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Now, he faces up to 75 years in jail

Read this post to know exactly what you should do when you encounter Illegal activities at work.