Fail Forward

I was inspired by my friend Steve Tang's commencement speech to the Class of 2016 at Philadelphia University.  I appreciated his message about the importance of failure and especially his willingness to speak personally and specifically about his own failures in his professional career.

It reminded me that a driving force in the success of another role model of mine, Della Clark at The Enterprise Center, was her own struggle as an entrepreneur.  These hardships strengthened her resolve and character, and gave her insight and motivation to be an advocate for countless entrepreneurs in West Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania.

Both of these great people are fundamentally important influences in my life and incredibly big contributors to our modern Philadelphia.  We all would do well to heed their example.  Don't be afraid to fail, put yourself in situations where you might fail, and linger over your failures so as to pick out the lessons embedded in them.  These are hard things to do, but they will make all the difference.