When I was an eighth grader, there was a day that was so painful I still remember it clearly. I was to give a speech about New York in an English class. I was so nervous, I decided to try my speech out on a group of friends the day before. My fear made me cocky. I delivered the whole speech to my friends calling the city Yew Nork and acting like a clown. You can guess what happened. During my speech the next day, every time I said New York I stumbled. I just couldn't get the words out. The more I stumbled the more nervous I got. The students were laughing and the teacher was mad. It was awful. I was a dismal failure.

But that failure taught me something. I never acted like a show-off again, no matter how nervous I was. Failure had turned out to be an odd kind of gift. Now that everyone in…