An expert's guide to failure and defeat.

Education exacts a cost. Failure is tuition.

The stakes of enterprise is falling down.

Low, into speechless sorrow and rankling remorse.

In every saddening soul. In my own write.

But if you’re breathing, things can always get worse,

And if you wallow, things certainly will.

Way down on the canvas or mud or gutter. Listen.

Through every silence, every breath, every sigh,

Though all ambition, meek or soaring, cracked,

And deep-sunk in a growing darkness.

Where even allies gape down in pity

Offering gut squeezing limericks of regret.

The murmuring crowd idly passes sentence,

You can’t. I told you so. You’re finished.

Listen. Over the clattering bells of finance,

And the roaring engine of continuous commerce,

A persistent voice.

Quiet, but perfectly clear.

Get back up.