We all want the “sure thing.” We all want to be able to see the direction life is going to go and then walk the path. Often, it is how it is depicted in almost every biography of a successful person. It usually begins with something about them always doing x and then they began doing x more and more, got a big break, and became a massive success. Honestly, that sounds pretty sweet. But it is not really the truth. There are all of these little speed-bumps, uncertainties, failures, and hardship along the way. Those are the things that rarely get talked about but it’s actually probably the most important lessons that can be taught. Nobody gets anywhere without failing. If you were to ask a successful person about all of their successes, I bet they could name a few but probably be a bit hazy on the details. However, you ask about the failures and you get a really detailed story that is full of emotion and a genuine perspective shift. I think it is time for society to talk about failure a bit more than they do about success.
Let’s face it, failure is not what we are pursuing. Sure, in the Silicon Valley bro culture it’s super cool to “fail fast, fail often” but I am talking about actual failure, not a 30M startup that raised capital on hype and closed shop because the inherent value wasn’t in the business model. I’m talking about the failure where you devote years, maybe decades, to an idea that you believe in so much that you have sacrificed everything for it to become a reality. But then you reach a point where you are just exhausted. After the late nights that became standard, the cheap meals because you can’t afford anything else, and the massive amounts of stress, there comes a point where everybody reaches a breaking point. The failure comes when the realization sets in that despite giving absolutely everything, the idea won’t become a reality. Failure is inevitable at that point.
There is a fine line between burnout and failure. Burnout relates to the self. It is the balance in life that is needed to endure hard things. Failure is relates to the idea and how the market reacts to it. They are two very different things that often get misunderstood, especially in the brain of an entrepreneur.
To the entrepreneur reading this or the person who has failed at something (aka everyone), if you know in your heart that you have given it everything you have, tried everything you can think of and it still didn’t work: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. You are NOT a failure.
I’ve had that thought whenever I have been met with failure throughout my life. My first reaction is to think that it is me. What could I have done differently? Am I not good enough for that? If I had only tried a bit harder… But the reality is the success of an idea has so many factors that are controlled by outside forces. A lot of it, weirdly comes down to timing. And that is something that, if could be predicted, everybody would be successful. My first company, doing film, had a logo of a book with a film reel as a bookmark.
It literally meant storytelling through film. It was even called Metastyle, a random name that I had come up with during a night I couldn’t sleep. But this was 2014 before Meta was anything besides a tag that you used in website code. There was no place for meta as a part of conversation to say, “Dude that is so meta.” Also, storytelling wasn’t really a thing either. I would go to all of these brands and talk about how important it was to share the story of your brand, not just what you are selling. I was basically laughed out of every room because all they wanted to hear was Kickstarter video or Facebook ad. Funny enough, about 7 years later one of the biggest companies in the world changed their name to Meta and storytelling has become the latest buzzword in literally every marketers playbook, whether they know what that means or not (please don’t use the phrase storytelling anymore. It’s already practically meaningless at this point). Metastyle ultimately failed not because I was bad at what I did or that I didn’t work hard enough, the timing was just off. Timing is everything.
When I look back on that time in my life, it is so abundantly clear that it was the timing. But in the moment, it was crushing. It was the first company that I had poured everything into, even found success at, and it failed. I slept under my desk, I did the all-nighters, I filmed at Nike, made keynote speeches, I did all of the things that most would consider a success. I couldn’t make sense of it. And that is one of the hardest things to try to realize when you are in the moment. I think one of the greatest challenges that face any entrepreneur is the internal compass to know when an idea needs more effort, time, or just simply can’t continue. I wish I had the right answer, because it is a challenge I face almost every single day, as does every founder, no matter what point along the journey the company is at. The reality is a company can fail at any scale, at any point, and nobody knows when it can happen. But what I do know is that zooming out as often as possible is probably the best thing that I have ever done.
When I was young, all I wanted to do was make films that would change the world. I wanted to make films that millions of people would see, not because I wanted to be famous, but because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to share stories of people, real people, that were doing extraordinary things, to show that anything is possible. That we, as individuals that often feel powerless, do, in fact, have the power to do something meaningful for the world. Failure attempted to hurt that vision. Metastyle (the behind the scenes style of a company) was one of those failures. I began to question the power I had with a camera, does it actually matter? I began measuring my success to others around me (don’t do that) to see if I was “on track” to becoming the best in the world, to reach those millions of people. Even now, when I encounter difficulties, my mind is filled with fear. The fear that all the work was for nothing, that I should just change course because I pursued this long enough and I feel I am at the end of the road. That fear is all consuming sometimes. And the crippling anxiety that comes with it, the disappointment of feeling like a failure is even worse. Right in that moment, that you may feel too, zoom out. IMMEDIATELY. Because zooming out, looking at things on a bigger timeline, will make all the difference.
The show I produced, poured my blood (for real), sweat (a lot), and tears (more than I care to admit) into reached millions of people. I have received messages from others that say how much the content has helped shift their perspective, that I made a difference. I made films that showed real people, doing extraordinary things, and millions of people have seen it. That sounds like everything that I ever wanted. That sounds like success to me. So maybe failure, much like those epic novels we read, are just chapters along the hero’s journey. Sure halfway through The Odyssey, if you stopped reading, it might look like failure. But that is not the end of the book. And that is what I often fail to realize when I am face to face with a big failure. Rather than being the instrument that takes me down, it becomes the tool that allows me to succeed. Hard things are hard, there is no way around that. But fulfillment only comes through enduring the difficult and reflecting on the journey, regardless of the result. If everything failed tomorrow, regardless of what my ambitions are now, I have achieved what I set out to do when I was young, tell stories that make a difference.