When you hear the name J.K. Rowling, what comes to mind?

You probably picture an ultra-successful author whose books are adored by millions of readers all over the world. As the author of the Harry Potter series, she has achieved a level of fame and fortune that very few authors will know.

But it wasn’t always that way. Just a handful of years before she published the first Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling was a poor, jobless single mother who was fresh off a divorce. She had conceived of the idea for the Harry Potter series a few years earlier.

Now at a low point in her life, she gave her full attention to her writing.

Rowling later reflected on this experience in a 2008 commencement speech at Harvard University. She said, “Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.”

We think of failure as a curse, as something to avoid. But what if failure was a gift? What if your failure was the soil that helped grow your confidence? What if it allowed you to do what you really wanted to do?

Failure has a way, as J.K. Rowling pointed out, of stripping away the inessential. But what does that mean? What things are inessential?

There are many answers we could give, but the most important thing that failure strips away are expectations. When no one expects anything from you, it’s a great gift because there is no opportunity to disappoint anyone. There are no critics, no crowd to please, and no internet trolls ready to pounce on your every word.

If you’re at a low point, be grateful. Use this opportunity to be daring, to do something bold and unexpected. Write that story that’s been swimming around in your head for a while—the one nobody would expect from you. Or use this time to start that blog, podcast, or video channel.

The best gifts come in unexpected wrapping. Don’t be too quick to run away from the failure you might be feeling. It might be the best gift you’ve ever received.

Today’s Challenge: If you think you have failed in some way, how can you use this experience to get moving in the right direction?