‘失敗 can be the making of you’: Cosmopolitan editor, 39, 明らかにする／漏らすs how ‘圧倒的な 荒廃’ of Oxford University 拒絶 spurred her on to the 最高の，を越す of the magazine world

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Farrah Storr, pictured today relaxing at home, had Oxford in her sights from a young age

On December 16, 1996, I sat bolt upright in bed, clutching an envelope.

I was 18 years old and I’d been waiting for this letter for years.?

It was from Oxford University and inside was the 判決 that would 調印（する） my 運命／宿命 for ever. Or so I believed.

I 重さを計るd it in my 手渡す. It felt like the 火刑／賭けるs were as high as they かもしれない could be: was I a success or a 失敗? Did they want me, or not?

My big ambitions （機の）カム from a longing to impress my father.

He was a first-wave 移民，移住（する） from Pakistan and I was his third child ? a shy girl who showed little academic vigour.?

But education and attainment are 拍手喝采する in Asian culture.?

It’s an 現在進行中の joke that distant uncles and aunts may not know your middle 指名する but they will know how many GCSEs you got, what grades they were and how far ahead of the 残り／休憩（する） of the cla ss you 現在／一般に are (all wildly 誇張するd by your parents, of course).?

I knew the 大勝する to my father’s 是認 was hard work and the highest grades. Better than that, the way to really impress him would be to get into Oxford University.

So from the age of 13 I 熟考する／考慮するd. And 熟考する／考慮するd some more. 結局 my grades started to 転換.

I went from Bs to A minuses. A minuses’s to straight As. And finally, on GCSE day, from As to a clean sweep of A 星／主役にするs. My path was 始める，決める. I had Oxford in my sights.

At the interview, I wondered whether to smooth the Northern undulations from my accent. People didn’t really go to Oxbridge from my 明言する／公表する college. And Oxford felt 外国人 to me. Apart from travelling to St Ives as a child once, I had never really spent any time ‘負かす／撃墜する South’. Even the 空気／公表する seemed to smell different. Cleaner, richer, suffused with 約束. I’d never met people like this either.

At dinner in a cavernous hall of 古代の 支持を得ようと努めるd and 激しい 形式順守, I sat next to a smiley young girl called Anna who said it was just like her 搭乗 school. When she asked me where I was from, I told her: Manchester.

‘Oh...what part?’ she smiled.

I つまずくd over the words. Salford didn’t feel 権利. Not in this place. So I settled on Prestwich ― the 隣人ing, more middle-class village. The interviews were 行為／行うd in 前線 of a パネル盤 of old grey men with 破滅的な manners and even more 破滅的な questions.

Rumour spread that they had asked one child to get a brick out of the window without 開始 the window ― one of their cruel, logic-実験（する）ing questions. To which the student had thrown it out of the window, 粉々にするing a glass pane in one of the oldest colleges in Oxford. 明らかに, it wasn’t the 権利 answer.

Life lessons: Farrah on her 卒業 day at King's College after 存在 拒絶するd by Oxford

True or a myth, it 始める，決める us all on 辛勝する／優位. I had 適用するd for French and English and my own interview was kept short. Why did I like Thomas Hardy? What other Existentialist did I read? As I left, の近くにing the door behind me, I smiled to myself. I had given it everything. I remember taking the train 支援する home, and telling my mum it was now just a waiting game.

And so, a week shy of Christmas, that letter arrived. But, no, it did not 含む／封じ込める the answer I had been 推定する／予想するing, and the 荒廃 was 圧倒的な. 涙／ほころびs fell before I even managed to read to the 底（に届く）. I had been 拒絶するd. To me, it was a 調印する: I was a 失敗. I asked my mother not to open the curtains that day, and stayed in bed, very still beneath the sheets. We didn’t talk much about it.

Later that year, I 爆弾d out. I started going out and dating older boys. I やめる the punishing work schedule I had 始める，決める myself for the last few years and decided I would just go to any university that would have me. It took many years for the sting of 失敗 to 沈下する, for the echo of those words ‘I 悔いる to 知らせる you…’ finally to fade.

But here’s the thing. At the time, I thought it had changed the course of my life for the worse. Now, 20 years on, I can truthfully say it was one of the defining moments of my life, but in a good way.

By 軍隊ing myself to come to 条件 with that 深く，強烈に uncomfortable feeling of 失敗, I got stronger. I went to King’s College London and, と一緒に my 熟考する／考慮するs, started to 適用する for work experience on glossy magazines. What was the worst that could happen? They’d say no. 拒絶する me. But I’d been through that already; I had nothing to lose.

Slowly I rebuilt my 信用／信任 and started to 令状 little bits here and there, and when I 卒業生（する）d I had a 大臣の地位 of work to show. Something that made me stand out from the hundreds of others 適用するing for 職業s on magazines. It is without question why I am in the 職業 I am in today.

Storr (pictured on GMB earlier this month) says her 拒絶 from Oxford is one of the defining moment in her life, in a good way

Nowhere in the history of the world was 失敗 ever aspirational. No one ever welcomes 失敗. Yet this cultural mindset has led to 世代s with something called ‘失敗 苦悩’ ? an aversion to ever trying anything new or too challenging for 恐れる of mucking it all up.?

What’s more, many young people today are so 保護するd from 失敗, they find it impossible to 対処する with life’s 後退s when they do 必然的に come. We have spent so long cosseting our children in a misguided 成果／努力 to produce healthy ‘self-esteem’, they have never learned what the 不快 of 失敗 feels like.

In US universities, academics talk of ‘失敗-奪うd’ students ? the kids who 努力する／競う for perfection and are faultless on paper. These are the ones who have spent their childhood captaining the football team, winning the 審議 cup and tinkling their way to Grade Eight piano.

Surrounded by 賞賛する, 押し進めるd by their parents, they 緩和する through school collecting メダルs and トロフィーs. We coddle them so much, 失敗 has 大部分は untouched their lives.

And that’s a problem. Because it’s these kids who are 激しく揺するd by the smallest struggles later.

Not getting on to the university course they 手配中の，お尋ね者; not making the college team; not 存在 cast as the lead in the 演劇 生産／産物. These everyday tribulations are 主要な to 不景気, 苦悩 and tearful 開会／開廷／会期s in university counselling rooms. The more 優れた they appear on paper, the more difficult they find it to を取り引きする life’s teeniest 障害s.

I see the results of 失敗 deprivation all the time at Cosmopolitan. I see high-達成するing work-experience students who are so 脅すd of getting something wrong, they 簡単に do nothing at all.

I know of brilliant young writers whose 恐れる of not wanting to 激しく揺する the boat means they produce bland stories rather than the bold tales I know they have within them. I want our young people to be more fearless ? and fearlessness, in my experience, comes from having tasted struggle and 失敗. It comes from having been grazed by life’s sharp 辛勝する／優位s, rather than shackled by success.

So how do you make 失敗 許容できる? You talk about it in an unemotional manner. You look at what went wrong rather than who was 責任がある it going wrong.

In Japan, teachers often 始める，決める children very difficult problems to solve, knowing some of them will fail. But, 反して in Western schools the child who gets the 権利 answer is 選び出す／独身d out and the ones who get it wrong are shamed, in Japan it 作品 わずかに 異なって. There, the child who is struggling to find the 権利 answer is the one who is 選び出す／独身d out. The other children in the class are then encouraged to help this chil d find the 権利 answer. They must fathom it out together and never, ever demonise the child in question for failing to get there by him/herself.

By talking so 率直に about 失敗, they take the 不快 out of it. 失敗 has touched most parts of my life. I’ve failed at love, at friendships, and almost certainly at leadership. And what have I learned through all of it? That you should never walk past a mistake, no 事柄 how terrifying it is. You can always learn from it.

I will never forget the first major 職業 I failed at. It was on a fashion magazine in Australia where my husband and I had moved ーするために ‘see the world’ before settling 負かす／撃墜する in England. I was 31, and although I’d worked in other offices, this was the big one ? a place I’d 手配中の，お尋ね者 to work my entire career. The 割れ目s started to appear 早期に on.

My ideas weren’t 権利 in 会合s. The copy I edited wasn’t good enough. The editor-in-長，指導者 設立する my 静かな demeanour unfathomable. She was not an unkind woman, but like most bosses she had her ways and her people. And her people cottoned on やめる quickly that I was not one of them.

I was supposed to lead a small team but as my 信用／信任 drained away ? slowly, 刻々と, like bath water 負かす／撃墜する the plughole ? I 疑問d everything. At lunchtimes I would sit on the 辛勝する／優位 of the harbour with all of shimmery Sydney before me and I would cry. I don’t cry (Oxford 失望s aside). It’s never been my thing. But I had 支援するd myself into such a corner of 失望／欲求不満 that crying seemed the only thing left to do. In the end I 辞職するd, telling the editor that I couldn’t see a way 今後 for me. She smiled kindly and nodded.

For many years I was too 脅すd to look 支援する on that experience. I put it in a box and 非難するd the magazine, the editor, my 同僚s ? anyone but me. But when I became an editor and went looking for answers as to how to lead, I finally looked 支援する and realised that once again 失敗 had taught me 価値のある lessons about myself. I was a loner on a magazine that needed constant communication. I was 防御の.

I was too inexperienced then to make the 職業 work. 結局, I was able to 診察する that 失敗 in a healthy, useful way. Again, far from destroying my 信用／信任, it made me いっそう少なく fearful for the 未来 because I knew whatever （機の）カム next would be better.

How I wish I could go 支援する to that teary-注目する，もくろむd 18-year-old girl sitting on her bed and tell her that. I’d 持つ／拘留する her 手渡す and tell her to 乾燥した，日照りの her 注目する，もくろむs. It’s a good thing to lose いつかs, I’d say. Life isn’t over. In fact, it’s just begun ? with a lesson you’ll take strength from again and again.?

Abridged 抽出する from The 不快 Zone, by Farrah Storr, which is published by Piatkus, 定価つきの £13.99. 申し込む／申し出 price £11.19 (20 per cent 割引) until September 30. Order at mailshop.co.uk/調書をとる／予約するs or call 0844 571 0640.