“Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”

Mary Tyler Moore is basically reminding us that a good life is a little messy on purpose. “Take chances, make mistakes” means stop waiting until you’re perfectly ready or guaranteed a win. Ask for the promotion. Say how you really feel. Try the project you’re scared of. You’ll stumble sometimes, and yeah, it’ll hurt. But that pain toughens you up in the best way, it proves you can survive awkwardness, rejection, and disappointment. That’s where courage comes from, not from everything going smoothly. Think about the times you’ve grown most: a breakup, a job that didn’t work out, a plan that fell apart. You didn’t just recover; you learned what you’re made of. Failing isn’t the opposite of bravery. It’s the training ground for it.