Long before he became one of America's most respected presidents, Abraham Lincoln failed at a startling number of things. His first business venture collapsed, leaving him with debts he spent years paying off. He lost his first run for state legislature. He ran for Congress, won once, then lost badly the next time and stepped away from politics for years.
He tried for the U.S. Senate twice, losing both times — once in a widely publicized series of debates that made him a national figure even in defeat, but a defeat nonetheless. Along the way, he also endured the deaths of his mother, a sister, and, later, two of his own young sons — grief that friends said visibly aged him.
Through all of it, he kept teaching himself law by candlelight, kept showing up to debate difficult issues even when it wasn't politically convenient, and kept building a reputation for painstaking honesty in an era when that wasn't a guaranteed political asset.
In 1860, the man who had lost more elections than most politicians even run in, was elected President of the United States, going on to lead the country through its Civil War and to sign the Emancipation Proclamation — a résumé built almost entirely on a willingness to lose, learn, and keep standing back up.