Quote of the Day: H. Stanley Judd on Education

Before his books found their audience, H. Stanley Judd had to earn his voice the unglamorous way: by writing, revising, and discovering, again and again, what didn’t work. That quiet persistence is what gives his words their edge: “Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's OK to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing.”

Failure stings, but what drains us is often the performance that follows, the excuses, the hiding, the frantic attempt to look unshaken. Judd’s point is practical: don’t pay twice. If you’ve already spent the tuition of a mistake, collect the lesson and move forward. The moment you stop treating failure like a verdict and start treating it like data, you recover your time, your confidence, and your agency.

Try this: after a setback, write down three lines, what happened (facts only), what I controlled, what I’ll do next. Keep it short enough that you’ll actually do it. This turns “I failed” into a plan. It also builds resilience because you practice returning to action, not rumination. And it fuels courage because you learn that discomfort is survivable, and often useful.

As a storyteller with a reputation for vivid, compelling work, H. Stanley Judd understands that every draft worth reading contains evidence of failure: scenes that collapse, sentences that miss, and revisions that finally reveal the truth.

Today, pick one area where you’ve been playing it safe, take a small measurable risk (send the email, ship the draft, ask for feedback), and decide in advance that the outcome is information, not identity. May your next mistake be quick, honest, and wildly instructive.