Hey, fellow adventurers! Today, we’re diving headfirst into the wild and wonderful world of failure. Wait wait wait, don’t click away! I know this isn’t a fun topic. You may think the F word is like saying Voldemort aloud – you’re worried that you’re going to conjure it.
I’ve got news you’re not going to want to hear, but I have good news is. Ready? Lean in.
The bad news is, at some point, you’re going to fail. You may not fail so badly that you’re out on the street, but if you’re pushing yourself in any kind of way to achieve Big Things, you’re going to have some failures along the way.
I’ve always been a high achiever, an A-student, and a valued employee. I honestly didn’t experience much failure through my 20’s. But guess what else I wasn’t experiencing? Adventure. Fun. Passion. The pursuit of my dreams. I liked playing it safe because, well, it was safe! There’s nothing wrong with safe. But when you have dreams? That’s not the formula to achieve them.
In another life, I was a novelist, and I was rejected 189 times by agents and more from publishers who didn’t find my work good enough. I kept going, because it was my only plan to get me out of my 9-5 job and into a life working from home and being my own boss (until I started my bookkeeping business, of course). Finally after YEARS , I landed an agent and a publishing contract. I thought my dreams were coming true.
And then the book flopped. And since it didn’t do well, no one wanted to publish my next book either. Or the book after that. The next book, a sequel to the published one I wrote just for me and the handful of people who read the first one (check it out here, by the way, if you’re curious). I do want to self publish the three that are sitting in a drawer one day (if I EVER have time), and YES, I realize how lucky I am to be in the tiny percentage of writers with a published novel to their name. But I didn’t want to just publish a book. I wanted to make a CAREER of publishing books. And when I worked out how much I was paid for an advance vs. how much time I put into it (and yes, I tracked, because I’m a spreadsheet nerd), I made something like .005 cents an hour. Not exactly the kind of financial freedom to quit my job that I was looking for.
So after I finished my THIRD unpublished novel (well, fourth, because the first book I wrote was awful and never saw the light of day), and after dealing with post concussion syndrome, I found a new dream. I started this business and I never looked back. And as it started to grow, my new dream became one that I thought would help a lot of business owners AND earn me the kind of passive income that would bring some long-awaited financial abundance and security into my life.
I studied, read, researched how to do it. I hired coaches and consultants to help me with the stuff I didn’t understand. I worked on weekends for six months. I had two nervous breakdowns (no joke, y’all), but I made a bright and shiny course I’m really proud of. I launched it in September and got 8 students (my goal was 10, so I thought that was pretty good for a first launch). In January, I launched again, thinking it would do at least twice as well considering the upcoming tax season.
But after looking at some metrics from the first launch, I decided to change my formula from a 4-part email video series to one long video, and I upped my price (since I had severely underpriced the first go ’round). I got TWICE the amount of signups for the free masterclass (maybe that was your entry point to this blog), and I was so excited, thinking it was going to yield twice the amount of sales.
Only 2 people bought it. I spent more on advertising the lead magnet than I made in sales. The course launch, essentially, had failed.
I’m not going to lie, it SUCKED. It felt REALLY crappy that something I worked so relentlessly on didn’t take off the way I hoped it would. I felt like no one was ever going to buy it. I felt like I was foolish to believe, yet again, that I could attract that kind of audience and financial success. I felt like the course wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.
This is the part where most people say “and then I changed X” or “then I worked with so and so, and it completely changed my life.” But nope. The truth is, I still haven’t figured it out. And yeah, there was that time that I felt like “it’s me…I…I’m the problem it’s me.” It triggered all the sads from the book failure that no one allows me to call a failure. I let myself feel that for a minute. I wallowed. I got pissed at the influencers who promised $10k months.
But I’m over it now. I’m no longer thinking of MYSELF as a failure. Something I did failed. And that’s MUCH different.
Everyone tells you that every stumble, trip, and faceplant is a golden opportunity to learn and grow. And how much do you want to punch “everyone”? But it’s true! Failing is like your own personal crash course in resilience, creativity, and grit. Someday I will get to say “and then things changed and things started to grow and grow until I got to X milestone. And I’ll have that failure to be proud that I overcame, and I’ll be grateful for it because I learned the stuff I needed to learn before I could succeed.
I don’t know the exact right formula yet, but I have learned some things that the universe has been trying to teach me over and over throughout my life. I learned from this failure to set my goals a little more realistically and think of building my passive income as a long game, rather than bringing the desperate energy I have been. I learned that I need to look at this almost like a scientist, testing hypotheses and delighting as I gather data without being too attached to the outcome. I learned that it can be FUN to pivot and try different things, and that I am the type of person who is full of ideas and isn’t going to give up just because something didn’t work. Those are some lessons that are going to help me endure and become the freakin’ rich bish I’ve always wanted to be.
So here’s to failing spectacularly, failing gloriously, and failing forward. Because when it comes down to it, the only real failure is not trying at all. So go ahead, take that leap of faith, and see where it leads you. Who knows? You might just stumble upon something amazing.