"I suppose I don't look at them as failures. I am somewhat tenacious and was told by my mother when I was a kid, 'If at first, you don't succeed, try and try again.' So any setback I face, I look at as a learning opportunity, and learning always shores you up for future success."

Everyone experiences failures and setbacks in life, whether personally, professionally, or academically. The context doesn't matter. What matters is the emotional maturity of how you navigated and recovered from those setbacks. There is nothing wrong with admitting to your failures. It doesn't expose your weakness but rather showcases your strength. The trick is in owning it. No one can hold over you what you already own. It is all about the lessons learned from those experiences and taking what you learned to ensure you don't make the same mistakes again, and thereby are more likely to succeed where you failed before.