Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
August 2018
- When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
- Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
- London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
- Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
- Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start
July 2018
- Fear This Instead Of Failure
- Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
- A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
- The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
- Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti
June 2018
- A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
- US Army Embraces Mistakes
- Blocking A Hymn
- Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
- [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed
May 2018
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
- Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
- This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
- MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process
April 2018
- Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
- Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
- Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
- Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
- Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged
March 2018
40 Years of Nightmares
Ray “Hap” Halloran was shot down over Tokyo during a World War II bombing mission. His inhumane treatment as a POW nearly destroyed him.
The hero tells his own story:
We jumped from our dying ship at 27,000 feet altitude and parachuted over enemy soil, just east of Tokyo…I was immediately captured by a group comprised of very angry Japanese civilians and military personnel, who beat me so badly I thought I would be killed…I was also forced to sign a waver of my Geneva Conference Prisoner of War rights. I was not considered a POW by the Japanese, but instead a Federal Prisoner. I was charged with murder and I was held captive – with a death sentence over my head every single day of the 215 days I survived – until I was liberated from this living Hell at the end of the war.
For for the next four decades, Halloran struggled with terrible nightmares from his ordeal. Although he went on to a successful career and family life, he was haunted by these experiences. His perspective changed in 1989. As a recent article explains
Hoping to deal with his agonizing memories and because he was curious about his past, Mr. Halloran contacted U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield in 1984 and organized a trip to the country.
By looking at archived photographs, he was able to find the pilot who had shot down his B-29 bomber nearly half a century earlier. He also met and befriended guards from the Tokyo prison camp where he was tortured and starved for seven months.
[Thanks to] new friendships and visits to sites he remembered from the war, Mr. Halloran’s frequent, crippling nightmares “began to tail off.”
Photo © www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/Halloran.htm
Raymond “Hap” Halloran passed away at the age of 89 just last month. To face his fears and get over decades of nightmares, he had to return to the place where he was captured and tortured. He had to confront the people who were his enemies and become their friends. Failure is the secret to success. Sometimes the only way to get over the most difficult parts of our lives is to relive, revisit and reinvent.
Raymond Halloran – WWII prisoner of war in Japan.
