As I sat down in front of my computer screen, I was not expecting the lesson I was about to receive. Since none of the forty leaders came to my high school and I do not get C-Span 3, the Internet was my only access to the Students & Leaders program. Through the slow connection speed of my 28.8 K modem, Governor Warner bumped along every few seconds. The extra concentration necessary to comprehend the Governor's speech proved to be a rewarding omen. What I initially deemed to be an "if at first you don't succeed" address was far more than the cliché. The Governor taught me that succeeding in life, leadership, public service, even business, is not simply a matter of trying again and again. It was not by luck or blind perseverance that the Governor just kept trying and eventually succeeded, in business with Nextel and politics in the guberntorial campaign. The Governor taught me that if you desire a goal, if you want it deeply enough and are willing to work, to slip, to fall, to fail, then there is no stopping you from achieving your goal.

Governor Warner's speech reminds me that leadership is more than just raw skills or ability to motivate others. It is the ability to motivate one's self: to walk the edge, knowing that at any moment you might fall, yet unwilling to let a simple stumble wreck your path. This ability to motivate one's self after countless failures is a quality all great leaders possess, yet one that is impossible to teach. A leader must believe in his mission despite failure, and lead himself before he can lead others. Lincoln possessed this quality. He famously lost the senate race to Stephen Douglas before winning the presidency. Lincoln's troops suffered humiliating defeat after defeat until Gettysburg, and then Lincoln seized this modest victory to redefine a nation's purpose and lead a divided and anxious country toward those goals.

The Governor comes as close as one can to teaching his audience the necessary mindset to become a successful leader. And yet in giving his speech he must have known that telling his listeners that they must be willing to fail in order to become a better leader is a message that few are eager to accept. Our culture celebrates instant success, with a new American Idol created every viewing season. Leadership is not for the impatient or the easily discouraged. The true test of each potential individual leader who listened to Warner's speech, either in the audience, on C-Span, or on the Internet, will be when he or she is faced with failure, and the individual's response. Most will give up, move on, feeling that if they have failed perhaps it wasn't their calling to lead. But those who don't give up, the ones who fail over and over, learning something new with each setback, and each time gaining a deeper passion for success, those are the individuals who will become leaders.

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