“Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Important of Imagination” by J.K. Rowling

My daughter Charlotte graduated from Northwestern University yesterday, succeeding her mother, father, aunt, uncle and grandfather before her. I am so proud that she not only graduated from college, but also discovered a passion for health communication and public health that will take her to study at Emory University in Atlanta for the next two years. When Charlotte walked the aisles of Ryan Field yesterday in the pouring rain, it made me think of this book, “Very Good Lives” by J.K. Rowling. This is a book-bound version of the commencement speech that Rollins gave in 2008 at Harvard University. Unlike most graduation speeches, the wizard behind the legendary Harry Potter series did not talk about success, but rather learning to appreciate failure. This was, I’m almost certain, one of the last books my dad read. He did not read books like normal people. Friends would give him a book and he would read a few chapters and be done because he had so many scripts to read. But he did read this book and passed it along to me because he loved it so much. It mirrored his own motto said best by Samuel Beckett, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.  Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” My father worked so hard for the successes he had in television and film, but he was the first one to point out his failures because he learned from them. He would often introduce himself as, “The man who created the TV series ‘Me and the Chimp,” or, “The man who wrote ‘The Roast,’ the shortest running play in the history of the Winter Garden Theatre.” Like my dad, Rowling learned that the goal in life is not to succeed or fail every time, but to try, and try again and again to follow your dreams. I gave Charlotte her grandfather’s copy of this book last tonight to celebrate her bright future.  To purchase this book on Amazon click here.