4 important things we can all learn from failure

A little over two years ago my good friend, Chris Buttenham, and myself pulled the trigger on starting a podcast. (you can check out The Art of The Fail here).

Both having started our own businesses and having been around many other entrepreneurs, there was a good chance that our podcast would have something to do with just that.

The next question we asked ourselves was just exactly "what" it was that we wanted to talk about...

So we did what the two of us do best -- put our heads together. Turns out we're not too bad at brainstorming ideas.

"Let's talk about failure", said Chris. "It will be fun", said Chris. And you know what, he was absolutely right.

But WHY did we take this on?

Chris actually wrote about our main reasons last year in a LinkedIn article, but I'll give you the Coles Notes version below:

First and foremost because no one talks openly about their failures. If we look on the macro scale, society glorifies everything to do with our successes and wins, but the majority of us take a hard pass when it comes to peeling back those layers beyond the surface. You'd be surprised, or not, on what you might find when people start to open up and give you all of the details. Fortunately enough for us, it makes for good content on the show.

But what I'm talking about above is the classic iceberg effect on repeat. We hardly see what's actually happening and we only "focus" on what others want us to see.

Above everything though, our real inspiration came from our own entrepreneurial experiences and specifically learning from the failures and stories of other phenomenal individuals we looked up to.

For us, talking about failure was (and still is) about creating a platform where people can openly talk about "failure" -- one that defies the negative stigma behind it. There's just something about un-edited and un-filtered conversations that we both personally find engaging.

After having hundreds of these un-edited conversations (both on and off the "air") with people about their own experiences and perspectives on failure, we decided it was time to share some of those important lessons that we've learned along the way. What amazed us about all of this is that regardless of how different everyone's story and experiences are, fundamentally, our views on failure are much more similar than what any one of us might have guessed.

Here are 4 important takeaways and lessons about failure:

1 | Failure is inevitable

This one is at the top of the list for a very good reason.

Regardless of what anyone of us does when it comes to making money or how we just generally live our lives, we will fail.

That's right, I will fail, you fail, your friends will fail, and so on.

And not just once, not twice, not three times, but many.

Life is full of ups and downs, mistakes, lessons and failures.

It's what keeps many of us on our feet. It's what keeps us asking questions and being curious. It's what educates us without the formality behind it. And it's what eventually betters us.

When you embrace that failure, to some extent, will happen, you start to see things much more clearly.

2 | This shit is hard

I think one of the real reasons that most people take the plunge into entrepreneurship they see it being glorified and an easy route to success.

Unfortunately, it often feels like the blind leading the blind.

Sure, the barrier to entry for just about anything these days is significantly less than it was even 5 years ago, but everyone dismisses most of the "obvious" challenges until they're looking at them right between the eyes.

As entrepreneurship becomes more and more prevalent, it's a serious disservice to first-time founders (and just about anyone) thinking that most days are full of sunshine, rainbows, and money... because it's far from that at all.

Is it enjoyable to start a business, make big "game-time" decisions, acquire customers, get marketing wins, get good feedback, and earn revenue? Absolutely it is.

But it can also be painful, and above all.. it's HARD. You will fail, you will stumble, you will feel like giving up.

Roll with the punches, and make sure you wear your helmet... you might just need it.

3 | Failure is highly subjective

This is one that is pretty interesting.

From all of our conversations, we've found that there is quite a bit of subjectivity when it comes to the definition of failure and the impact it can have.

Specifically, we've noticed that these answers differed depending on whether or not people were just starting up their first venture, or had already been on their fifth, sixth, seventh, etc.

My theory is that most founders (people in general) who have already learned that failure is inevitable and that everything in life is tough, have a higher threshold of failure. Because of this, how they perceive failure is likely to be much different than what you and I consider failing.

Regardless of what failure means to you right now at this exact moment while you're reading this article, make sure you learn from it.

4 | Not all failures end in success

Personally, this might be the most important lesson of them all.

Sure, Chris and myself talk very openly about failing on our podcast. And sure, a lot of our guests are well known entrepreneurs who have been around the circuit and have some degree of success behind their name.

But at the end of the day, not all failures end in success. And that goes back to lessons 1, 2 and 3 -- knowing that failure is inevitable, everything we do is tough, and that failure (along with success) is subjective.

While success might not be the outcome out of every failure, some sort of learning or lesson most certainly is... or at least it should be.

In fact, failure is one of the best opportunities we have to learn about ourselves, our relationships with others, our businesses, our clients, our desires, our passions, and just about everything else.

So if that's the case and every failure leads to new opportunities for learning and growth, then maybe success is the variable that should be at question.

Just some food for thought.

I really hope that you enjoyed reading this article! If you did, don't be shy and show me some <3 by sharing it with your networks and dropping me a comment below, I'd love to hear from you!

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