If you’ve ever read anything I’ve ever written, you probably know that I talk about the experience I had at a semi-prestigious Long Island law firm.

I can blame the bureaucracy, the marketing limitations set by lawyers who didn’t bring in any business, the unsupportive law firm administrator and managing attorney, but ultimately, I failed to start a national ERISA practice there. But I wouldn’t let that failure define me, it just drove me to succeed when I started my own law practice. The poor treatment I got there helped me act tougher, stop waiting my time on relationships that wouldn’t deliver, drove me to succeed, and created a chip on my shoulder.

I knew they would suffer since they didn’t understand the future of social media and I knew I would succeed because I saw the future. I enjoy writing about them because when you’re poorly treated, you want to rub your success in the people that were dismissive of you.

I know someone who lost their father when they were 12. I have a wife who lost her father when she was 16. The difference is the former allowed that loss define her and my wife has refused the untimely death of her father to hold her back.

We are all shaped by our past, both good and bad. We should never let a bad event or time define us.