Career success depends on how you cope with failure. Whether it's a big failure or a small one — you must be able to bounce back. Much of the grand success in life comes from grand opportunity, and you don't find that opportunity unless you keep looking. People who are easily discouraged get fewer opportunities.

But how does one become good at failing? How do you bounce back quickly? Martha Stewart provides some good lessons in this area. Because whether or not you think she should have gone to prison, you have to admit that prison does not seem to have gotten her down. When it comes to scope of failure, most of us would have crumbled way before we got to prison. So take a look at the steps she took to ensure she would bounce back, and use them to create your own career resilience.

Of course, it's easier to have resilience when you have millions of dollars. But Martha made four tactical moves that you can do yourself, even on your relatively penurious budget.

Use your network as a safety net.
Networking isn't only for a job hunt. It's also for failure, which tends to make you feel alone, even if others fail with you. A circle of your own informal advisors and supporters can make you feel less isolated and help you to bounce back faster. You need a range of friends when you fail. Sometimes you need a lawyer, sometimes you need someone to hang out at a bar all night with you. When you are failing, and you think the damage is irrevocable, your network will help you get perspective.

And don't forget your family — the people who are usually last to abandon you when you do something stupid. During Martha's ordeal she was dependent on her daughter, Alexis. Alexis showed up for court every day, as is customary for families of the rich-and-famous-and-accused. But Alexis also visited Martha in prison and served as her mouthpiece to the media. (“Martha is fine. She is eating out of vending machines.”) Martha shows us that we are never too important to need family in our network.

Fail fast.
Once you see things spiraling downward, face reality quickly and get out. The faster you fail the faster you can move on to the next thing. Denial can derail you. Don't continue to try to fix the unfixable because you can't face the fact that you failed. Martha had the benefit of many paid advisors to help her out of denial. Though you will have to depend on unpaid friends who may not be experts, listen to them to gain some perspective on how deep a hole you're in. It's always easier to see someone else's trouble than your own.

Once you see recognize big trouble, focus on speed. Martha could have dragged the court battle out even longer. She could have stayed out of prison while she appealed. But for the public, the drama will be over when Martha leaves prison, so she went in quickly.

Don't hide.
Failure is loud. If it weren't no one would have to admit to failing. So once it's obvious, face the crowd and show that you can handle it. The most interesting failures are when people completely fall apart. If someone looks resilient, and not likely to fold, failure is not as interesting to watch. That's what you want: Such flair for failing that no one pays attention.

As soon as Martha left prison, she took steps to show the public that she was her same old Martha self- and maybe a little bit better. She took a chartered jet home wearing fashionable clothes. She strolled the grounds of her home feeding her horse and serving drinks to the media circus surrounding her home. She also took questions from reporters, which is brave thing to do in a situation when most people would be too embarrassed.

Frame failure for yourself.
Failure is subjective. You can frame failure as career killing, but you gain nothing from this outlook. A better decision is to frame failure as a learning opportunity. Martha announced that she's a better person after her time in prison. Most of us, in fact, are better people from our failures, but if you don't frame it that way to yourself, you lose the opportunity to consciously put the learning to use.

Almost one-third of workers do not meet the writing requirements of their positions, according to a survey by the College Board’s National Commission on Writing.

Before any of you get smug with your writing acumen, keep in mind that most workers do not need to write more than a sentence or two to get their job done. For example, I bet burger flippers are meeting their job’s writing requirements by a higher margin than one third. My guess is that at the typical email-intensive office, the percentage of less than competent writers is well above the 50% mark.

Most of the writing we do at work is in the format of an email or a presentation. In both cases, the best way to get yourself into the small percentage of competent writers is to write short. The faster and more concisely you get to your point, the more likely your reader will understand your message. Here are some self-editing tricks for writing shorter:

1. Write lists. People love reading lists. They are faster and easier to read than unformatted writing, and they are more fun. If you can’t list your ideas then you aren’t organized enough to send them to someone else.

2. Think on your own time.
Most of us think while we write. But people don’t want to read your thinking process; they want to see the final result. Find your main point in each paragraph and delete everything else. If someone is dying to know your logic, they’ll ask.

3. Keep paragraphs short.
Your idea gets lost in a paragraph that’s more than four or five lines. Two lines is the best length if you really need your reader to digest each word.

4. Write like you talk.
Each of us has the gift of rhythm when it comes to sentences, which includes a natural economy of language. But you must practice writing in order to transfer your verbal gifts to the page. Start by avoiding words you never say. For example, you would never say “in conclusion” when you are speaking to someone so don’t use it when you write.

5. Delete.
When you’re finished, you’re not finished: cut 10% of the words. I do this with every column I write. Sometimes, in fact, I realize that I can cut 25% of the words, and then my word count isn’t high enough to be a column and I have to think of more things to say. Luckily, you don’t have to write for publication, so you can celebrate if you cut more than 10%. Note: It is cheating to do this step before you really think you’re done.

6. Refuse to be boring.
Any topic can be interesting, but not if the writer is not interested. Don’t write about a topic just because you think you should – it’s unlikely your reader will feel passionate about reading when you did not feel passionate about writing. Gen Y gets this intuitively and maybe that’s why it’s so easy to hire essay-writing experts.

7. Avoid adjectives and adverbs.
The fastest way to a point is to let the facts speak for themselves. Adjectives and adverbs are your interpretation of the facts. If you present the right facts, you won’t need to throw in your interpretation. For example, you can say, “Susie’s project is going slowly.” Or you can say, “Susie’s project is behind schedule.” If you use the first sentence, you’ll have to use the second sentence, too, but the second sentence encompasses the first. So as you cut your adjectives and adverbs, you might even be able to cut all the sentences that contain them.

I just checked to see if I have modifiers in the column. I do. But I think I use them well. You will think this, too, about your own modifiers, when you go back over your writing. But I have an editor, and you don’t, and I usually use a modifier to be funny, and you do not need to be funny in professional emails. So get rid of your adverbs and adjectives, really.

Avoid telltale signs of a rube.
Passive voice. Almost no one ever speaks this way. And on top of that, when you write it you give away that you are unclear about who is doing what because the nature of the passive voice is to obscure the person taking the action. Check yourself: search for all instances of “by” in your document. If you have a noun directly after “by” then it’s passive voice. Change it.