by Stephen T. Messenger
May 5, 2026
It’s easy to read someone’s biography and stand in awe of their accomplishments. After all, bios are designed to be impressive. But behind the achievements and success is a flurry of failures. No one has a perfect resume, is batting 1.000, or has stopped every goal fired against them. Outside of sports, no one launches a perfect project or has a team that never disagrees.
Instead, we have to be willing to take the hit in order to get to our victories. Once we can embrace our failures, then we can build a resume to be proud of.
Taking a Stick to the Face
Take the 2026 U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team, gold medal champions for the first time since the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. This team, led by hockey player Jack Hughes, was the definition of going through struggles to earn gold.
If you didn’t see it, the U.S. and Canada were tied 1-1 in an epic gold medal game entering the last period. U.S. player Jack Hughes took a stick to the face, bleeding from the mouth and losing a few teeth in the process. With the team literally bloodied, the U.S. took it into overtime, where Jack Hughes scored the golden goal, the game-winner. This was the same guy who was picking his teeth up off the ice 30 minutes prior.
After the game, Jack Hughes was skating with the American flag draped around him and a hole in his smile. In his interview, he lauded how great it is to be an American and what an honor it is to play for his country. And the U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team is the gold medal champion for the first time in 46 years.
This game was not only an amazing sports event, but more so, it was an example of the ability to take a hit and get back up. Jack Hughes’ story is the story of America: one where life is going to knock us in the face, and where we have to get back in the game to make things happen. As Marcus Aurelius said, “We have power over our mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
We’re all going to get punched in the face. In fact, it’s kind of the national pastime of the United States. You see, America has a history of taking a shot to the face and losing a tooth in the beginning. We’ve seen this in:
- The Revolutionary War when the British beat back General Washington multiple times
- The British burning the White House in 1814
- The Union loss at Chancellorsville in the Civil War
- The sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 and the Lusitania in 1915
- The 1929 stock market crash
- Pearl Harbor
- 9/11
- The housing market bubble of 2008
In all of these initial bloody faces, the United States, like the U.S. Olympic Team, always came back to score the game-winning goal. The United States came back from each of these “bloody noses” to recover, learn, and emerge with a new plan. In each case, America ended stronger than it began.
Famed Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote about this concept. He first spoke about the fog and friction of war, where we should accept that things are outside our control and will go wrong. He went on to state how armies must absorb the enemy’s blow, exhaust them, and transition to a powerful counteroffensive. Wins don’t come by accepting the initial loss, but by learning from it.
You see, the story of the Olympics is every one of our stories. Life is going to throw punches. It’s how we respond that matters.
What Lies Beneath the Bio
I have a military biography that talks about all the incredible accomplishments I’ve had in my 26 years. But what my bio doesn’t say is:
I failed to earn a spot on my middle and high school baseball teams five times. The one time I made the team in 9th grade, I played once in the last game of the season, going 0-2 with two strikeouts and three errors at third before being pulled. On my only AP test, I did not pass.
In college, I was cut from the Army ROTC top-tier teams. My GPA slipped in the last two years, and I failed my final commercial pilot check ride by putting us into a spin, requiring the instructor to pull us out of it. Wanting to branch Army Aviation, I didn’t make the cut. I was medically discharged from Ranger School twice. This list is just the start of a career of times I messed up. It doesn’t include all the failed briefings, plans, and times I did not perform to standard.
But out of each one, I learned. I came back stronger and smarter, not making the same mistake and instead making new ones. That caused me to increase in wisdom, building a solid resume on a foundation of failure.
No one’s bio shows all the failures. They only state how amazing we all are. But the failures are what make us able to deal with the hard stuff we need to be successful. “Because it’s not about how hard you get hit,” as Rocky Balboa says, “It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
Fail First, Fail Fast, Learn
We’re all going to fail… a lot. It’s about how we respond to those failures that determines our success in life. I’ve messed up countless times. Yet each failure was an opportunity to grow as a person and come back stronger the next time.
It’s often said that FAIL stands for “First Attempt In Learning.” While that’s a little cheesy, it’s true. The more we can embrace those failures, the better chance we have to become the person we were created to be.
Jack Hughes could have easily gone to the locker room after losing his teeth. Instead, he came back on the ice to score the game winner. The U.S. could have surrendered after the British burned the White House during the War of 1812, but instead, they fought to regain their country. And Rocky Balboa could have stayed on the mat each of the 15 times he was lying there, but instead, he got back up in the face of adversity.
The times we get back up will never be noted in our biographies. But they are what build them. The goal is to stop measuring our leadership by the absence of conflict or mistakes. Instead, measure it by the speed of our recovery. If we lose a tooth in the first period, the goal isn’t to pretend it didn’t happen; it’s to ensure we’re the ones taking the shot in the last period.
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