Losing is not pleasant. We know that. It can hurt more than you expect. Sometimes, it feels as if all the effort, the hours, the hard work… were worthless. But there’s something you eventually discover: not all defeats are final. Some even end up opening paths that we would not have imagined if everything had gone “right”.

The funny thing is that many of the most valuable moments in life are born right after stumbling. Not because falling down is romantic – it’s not – but because, once on the ground, you see things from a different angle. And that, as simple as it sounds, can change everything.

Maybe you didn’t win that job. Maybe your project didn’t work out the way you hoped it would. Or you said the wrong thing at the wrong time. It happens. It happens to all of us. But right there, in that moment when you take a deep breath and ask yourself “what now?”, is when the real transformation begins.

There is no magic formula. Sometimes you have to pause, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom. Accept what was and what will not be. And, in time, to get back up again. With a little more thick skin, but also with more clarity. More truth.

And you don’t have to do it alone. Talking it out helps. Laughing, when you can, too. Surrounding yourself with people who don’t judge you for failing, but push you to try again, can be the push you need.

Because turning a defeat into a victory isn’t always about redeeming yourself. Sometimes it’s simply about moving on. Not letting that fall define what’s next. To try again, knowing that the mistake has already left its mark… but not its sentence.

In the end, it’s not about always winning. It is about not stopping moving forward. Even when the road begins at the lowest point.