There are some days I can't recall what I had for dinner the night before, I forgot what I did last weekend, and I for sure have been known to re-wear the same outfit in the same week without realizing it.
My wife would argue I have the memory of a goldfish. And honestly, in certain contexts, she's right.
But here's the thing — in my career, I've come to believe that goldfish memory is actually a superpower.
The people who carry every failure, every rejection, every embarrassing moment, and every harsh piece of feedback with them move slower. They second-guess themselves more. They approach new opportunities with the weight of old wounds. They are so busy reliving what went wrong last time that they can't fully show up for what's happening right now.
The people who process quickly and move on don't lack depth. They lack baggage. And that makes all the difference.
Think about the best salespeople, the best athletes, the best performers in any field. They share one thing in common: a short memory for failure. The missed shot. The lost deal. The presentation that bombed. They feel it, they note it, and then they release it. Not because they don't care, but because they understand that carrying yesterday's losses into today's game is a choice, and it's a costly one.
This doesn't mean ignoring feedback or repeating mistakes. It means extracting the lesson and dropping the emotional residue. You learn and you move. You don't learn and then marinate in it for three weeks before trying again.
Your career doesn't benefit from perfect memory. It benefits from the ability to reset. To show up at the next meeting, interview, pitch, or conversation without dragging in the ghost of the last one.
The goldfish doesn't know it forgot. It just keeps swimming. There are worse models to follow.