Look, I’ve “failed” at A LOT of things. I “failed” the Virginia Bar Exam not once, but twice. I “failed” at getting a foothold in securities law like I thought I would. I “failed” at returning to my old self after giving birth to my twin boys and almost dying in the aftermath. There are plenty of other examples but I’ll leave it at that.

Why did I put failure in quotes? Because I’m a big believer in that you will continue to have the same challenges until you learn the lessons that you are supposed to learn. To me, it’s only a failure if you don’t, or refuse, to learn a lesson from your failures or mistakes. It's only then can you move forward. Here are the lessons that I learned from the above “failures.”

Here’s what I learned from the above failures:

• Failing the bar exam: I learned to create detailed a plan that included speaking to experts on the...

I have a confession to make to you guys. Are you ready?

I failed the Virginia Bar Exam twice. Yep. Twice. Both times by 4 points. The first time I went to live Barbri courses but honestly, I've never had to study like that before so I didn't know what I was doing once it came time to study at home. The second time I still didn't know what I was doing but only that time life threw a curveball at me with a sudden layoff and a break-up weeks before the exam so yeah... things didn't turn out well. 

If there is one thing that’s true about me, it’s that I’m one determined woman. I’ll be honest. I was embarrassed about failing the bar exam twice but I’d be damned if I was going to let that embarrassment keep me from trying again. One of my favorite sayings is:

What I had done before hadn’t worked so it was time to change my game plan. 

My new plan was to find out what I did wrong, how to correct those things and create and...