The Power of Failure:

Why Your Worst Moments May Be Your Greatest Asset

We live in a world that is very good at celebrating success and very quiet about everything that came before it.

LinkedIn feeds are full of wins. Milestones. Growth announcements. What you rarely see is the mess that preceded all of it. The wrong turns, the dead ends, and the moments where the path forward wasn’t visible at all. And according to William Bissett, that silence is doing real damage to the people who are still in the middle of their own hard stretch.

The Story We Don’t Tell Enough

In a recent Portus Perspectives episode, William shares something he doesn’t talk about often. His own failure.

As a sophomore at NC State, William failed out. He wasn’t invited back. What followed was a period of stumbling around, taking bartending classes with plans to head to Las Vegas, and eventually landing in Washington DC working for a catering company. It paid reasonably well, but it was a hard life, and it made one thing very clear. This wasn’t it.

The turning point came from an unlikely source. He came across Alan Greenspan’s book, and something clicked. Economics. He wanted to go back to school. He wanted to try again.

Earning the Second Chance

Getting back into NC State wasn’t simply a matter of asking. William had to prove himself first. The business school required him to take community college courses, earn A’s, and then return to campus and post a GPA above 3.5 in his first semester back before he would be accepted into the economics program.

He did it. And what came out of that experience wasn’t just a degree. It was something harder to quantify and far more durable. Confidence.

Not the kind of confidence that comes from things going smoothly. The kind that comes from knowing you have already hit the wall, stayed in it, and come out the other side. That knowledge followed William through every exam, every professional certification, and every difficult client conversation that came after.

What Failure Actually Teaches

The argument William makes is a simple one but an important one. If he had coasted through college without hitting that wall, he isn’t sure he would have come out the other side knowing what he was capable of. The failure didn’t just redirect him. It proved something to him about himself that an easier path never would have.

That’s the piece that gets lost when we only talk about the highlight reel. When all anyone sees is the success, the natural conclusion for someone going through a hard stretch is that they must not be built for this. That the people who made it never struggled the way they are struggling right now.

That conclusion is almost never true. And the fact that we don’t talk about failure openly enough is a big part of why it keeps getting drawn.

The Challenge

William closes this episode with a direct challenge. Let’s start talking about failure more. Let’s celebrate it alongside the wins. Because the failures aren’t the opposite of the success story. In most cases, they are the foundation of it.

If you are a business owner who has hit a wall, made a costly mistake, or is going through something you haven’t told many people about, you are in good company. And that experience, as uncomfortable as it is right now, may turn out to be one of the most valuable things that ever happened to you.

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The Power of Failure: Why Your Worst Moments May Be Your Greatest Asset | Portus Perspectives

​[00:00:00] 

I wanted to talk about something that I don’t talk about very often and, and I saw something last night on LinkedIn and it was talking about how we as a society don’t talk about failure as, as much as, as we should. We are always out there highlighting successes and, and growth and, and achievements, and what we don’t see is, is all the failures that sit behind it and, and how much.

Growth actually comes from failure. And, um, always like to think that failure. Isn’t a final act unless you, unless you allow it to be like, we’re out there learning from failure. And one of the ones that always kind of is in the back of my mind as an individual is at the, um, as I was going through school at NC State, um, actually failed out, um, as a sophomore, wrapping up my sophomore year and was, was not invited back to school.

And so, uh, I stumbled around out there for a [00:01:00] while. Uh. I took some bartending classes, I was gonna go outta Las Vegas and, um, and bartend out there. Fortunately, that didn’t end up happening. Um, and, and when that didn’t come to fruition, I ended up going to DC and, and working for a catering company and, you know, made some pretty good money.

But in the process I realized I was as a hard life and, um, and so I started stumbling for, you know, what to do next. I ended up running across Alan Greenspan reading his book, and it was like, well, wait a second. I wanna go back to school. This economics thing seems like I could actually get into it. And so what the failure had led me to do is now all of a sudden I had to go back to NC State and say, Hey, wait a second, how do I get back in?

Um, and so I went to the business school and I was like, look, I, I think I’m interested in economics. I think I can do it, and I I need a second chance. And so the, the head of the, um, business school at NC State was like, look, I need you to go take some classes at your local community college. Um, I need you to get a’s in your [00:02:00] classes, in your local community college.

And then we’ll accept you back into NC State. Um, but upon getting back into NC State, you’re still gonna have to apply to the business school. And in order for us to accept you in here, given your past, your past indiscretions, your past lack of achievement was we need you to come back into school and the first semester we need you to get over a 3.5.

And I was like, okay, well I’ll, I’ll do that. And so, um, it led me to, you know. Go back and take some community college classes and get A’s. And then it led me to come back to state and, um, you know, come in. And that next semester finished with a, um, an over a 3.5, which got me through, um, the economics program and, you know, allowed me to graduate.

And what I learned from that was, you know, I can do that. Like I have skills, I have knowledge if I apply myself. And so as I started to get outta school and apply myself and apply myself to future studies for, um, you know, the CFP exam and all the other. Exams that I had to take, I had the confidence that flowed through me.

And, and [00:03:00] it all goes back. I, I don’t know if I would’ve just skated through college, if I would’ve come out of college with the same confidence knowing that, look, man, I, I’d failed. Um, but as, as part of that failure, I really had to buckle down and succeed. And so as a result of that, I knew that when the time was necessary, if I buckle down.

That’s all I needed to do to succeed. And so that, that failure is what I think has ended up creating that success for me. And I think we need to champion those failure stories more often and really embrace ’em. Because when all we see the success, then we, we don’t acknowledge the fact that there’s their failures along that path to success.

And we glorify the failure or glorify the successes. And then when people. Hit that tough road. They think, well, I’m not built for this. And, and that’s not true. The, the people that created those successes also had those failures. They had those challenges. And they need to be talked about. They need to be spoken about.

’cause they’re such an integral part of the [00:04:00] process of the growth of, of the story, of the mission, of the, um, of the journey. So let’s, let’s embrace some failures here over the course of the next couple months. Talk about ’em and celebrate ’em.

ORIGINAL MEDIA SOURCE(S):

William Bissett: The Power of Failure | Portus Perspectives

Originally Recorded: April 23, 2026

Portus Perspectives: Episode 10

By /Published On: May 5, 2026/