On failure

On Saturday December 13th, 2025, I had the honor of being an invited speaker for the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. I truly enjoyed the opportunity to say a few words to the new graduates. For those interested, here are those words:

Today we are here to celebrate you and your success. When I was asked to speak today, I was unsure about what to talk about. I thought about talking about the world that you are graduating into, about misinformation and health. While I love the work I do, and I love to talk about it (as any of my students can tell you), this is ultimately not about me. It's about you. I thought about proposing some sort of “recipe for success.” But success isn't a recipe, it's a sort of mish mash of human connection and skill and a lot of luck. Then I remembered. I'm not a person who presents what is expected. On this day where we celebrate your success, I want to tell a story.

This is a story about failure.

In 2004, I graduated from a high school right here in Richmond and began attending VCU as an undergraduate student. Like many Freshmen, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I chose to be an urban studies major because that is what others in my family wanted me to be. One semester later, I was an anthropology major. And then I was considering being a film major. And then… then I was a VCU dropout. I flirted with returning to college a number of times, even enrolling at Old Dominion University for a little while. It was there that I took my first Psychology class. I was enamored. I remember the first time I read about the concept of cognitive dissonance, and it was just so… fascinating. 

If this were a standard story, I would tell you about how I immediately became a psych major, and how I joined labs, and about how I study the concept of cognitive dissonance now. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is, despite how much I loved Psychology, I didn’t do any of that. I failed my first Introduction to Psychology course. But it stuck with me. I left ODU in 2010. I was 24 years old. I had been trying to make college go for six years. And I had failed.

As I said, this is a story about failure.

While all of this was going on, I continued to work odd jobs both in and outside of restaurants. I worked as a server, a bartender, a line cook, and a manager. I sold rugs. I did yard work. I helped with the raising of children who were not my own. I spent my time reading and trying to make some sort of a living. I got jobs, got promoted, and got let go. Every new experience kept seeming to end in what I thought of as failure. Over time, I started to realize something – every time I was wrong, every time I made a mistake, every time I failed, I was learning something new. Every failure, even the ones that seemed pointless, came with a lesson. Sometimes the lesson was that I needed to put in more work and stay just a bit more organized. Sometimes the lesson was that I needed to be open to alternate possibilities. Sometimes, to paraphrase Star Trek, the lesson was that it was possible to commit no errors and still lose. 

Remembering that love of psychology, I eventually returned to VCU and chose to major in Psychology. Twelve years after I began my undergraduate journey, I graduated and walked across the stage. This was not the end of failure, though. Every time I turn around, every time I have some sort of plan, the world has met my plans and decided to send me in different directions. I failed, on multiple occasions, to get into graduate programs. Time and time again, I had to redirect.  I imagined futures that never ended up existing. My research interests changed so many times. While my research isn’t about cognitive dissonance, I truly care about the work I do and find it fascinating. Each failure has taught me, and each failure has led me to change my direction ever so slightly. I am proud of who I am, and I am proud of the work that I do. Without failure, none of what I have done would have been possible. 

This is a story about failure, but it is also a story about success. 

As you continue on in your lives, whether you are pursuing employment or further education, whether you are planning to do work in or outside of the field of psychology, I encourage you to take every step as it comes, and to consider the value of failure. In failing, in being wrong, we open the door to our own growth and learning. And without that growth, without that learning, we stagnate. Just as these steps across this stage will not be your last and most important moment, so too the mistakes you have made will not be your last. Embrace them. Embrace growth. Embrace change, and you will undoubtedly go far.