Failure Doesn't Have to Own you
Wield it and you'll be invincible
š Friends!
Dropping the latest episode on Failure for those who missed the livestream plus read on for another perspective on failure from a younger me that might have been sorta on to something.
š§ Hereās what Exactly to do When You Feel Like a Failed Marketer
You Failed
I wrote about failure about 10 years ago when I working like a benny addict to build my career. Itās filled with the self-indulgence and a drama of a 30 year-old (and token Paul Jarvis reference). If nothing else, itās a bit of levity on a subject we ought to be less serious about. Hope you enjoy š„ø - Devin
āHell man I know very well you didnāt come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except youāve got to stick to it with the energy of a Benny addict.ā - Kerouac
The thing that no one tells you about failure, the goddamn drag of it that no one ever talks about at cocktail parties or on the jacket of their best seller, or in their hopeful, Go get āem tiger! speeches. The thing that knocks you down on your bloody knees and peels back that layer of skin, the tender one thatās never seen the light of day, never been strung out, never known what itās like to be exposed. That goddamn virgin pierce.
Itās The Thing that scares people so much that they can only talk around it ā though they still encourage it (failure, that is) ā and brag about how āIāve failed once and it was the greatest lesson of my lifeā or āI wouldnāt be who I am [insert wildly successful subtext] if I hadnāt failedā ā and then just for egotistical shits and goddamn giggles ā āmultiple times in my life.ā
Yeah. Those clowns, these eternal optimists, those goddamn failure followers, you know what they donāt tell you?
Failure F*cking Sucks
It takes away your hope. It makes you feel like youāve never made a right decision ever in your life and worse: you never will again.
Failure makes you feel like what you want isnāt possible.
It sits at the edge of your bed every morning and laughs in your face. It reminds you ā reminds you ā that youāre no good and never will be good at anything. It leaps around in your stomach, it bangs on your temples and taunts your tender heart:
āYouuuuuuuu. Youāre doing all the wrong things!ā
Then it wakes you up in the middle of the night, like the goddamn asshole it is, and says to you":
āYou donāt even know what the right thing is.ā
š Have you rated/reviewed our show? š
If not, will you take a quick second and submit a quick rating and tell folks why you listen to the show? It really does help us keep the show going by showing potential sponsors and other potential listeners that weāre worth investing in ā¤ļø
Youāre doing it wrong
And you want to know the WORST thing about Failure?
Itās right! By the time youāre failing, you are on the wrong track and you are definitely doing the wrong things.
In fact, you veered off the path ages ago, only you donāt realize it. Now youāre flying your airplane in the middle of two storms with no place to go. You could have just stayed and waited the storms out, but no, you didnāt and now all you can do is fly and pray for air. Only there isnāt any air, because itās all being sucked up by the storms you decided to fly into. So you take off knowing youāre going to crash, but youāre too focused on flying to see that itās a mistake, that there was another way ā thereās always another way ā you just didnāt see it.
So you fly into the goddamn mess like an asshole, and everyone is screaming at you to turn around, but you canāt hear them above your failing engine. All you can hear is that goddamn voice: āJust keep going, you can do it!ā and so you do, but its a big mistake, because guess what? Youāre going to fail.
You fail
Didnāt catch that? Let me try again: You fail.
You fail. You failed. You failed.
And you want to know the absolute worst thing about all of it?
Itās a good thing.
You goddamn have to fail.
Why?
Why??
WHY???
Because:
Failing sets you on the right track
You donāt know it yet, but Failure is doing you a giant solid in the worst possible way. Because by the time Failure gets called in, you are past the point of nudging, of suggesting, of āYou might considerā¦ā
Yeah, The Universe tried that already and you didnāt listen. So guess what?
Failure has to step in, because you persevered beyond the point of reason.
Failure is screaming all the things you didnāt listen to before. Itās picking a fight. Itās brawling. Itās smashing that bottle over your head because you just couldnāt, you just wouldnātā¦stop.
Just. Stop.
But you canāt stop. You think you canāt, that is. So you fight back at failure and keep going like the goddamn sucker that you are, which only makes it worse you lollipop sucking fool.
And the more you fail, the harder you try! You in your goddamn justified justifiableness. YOU JUST KEEP TRYING BECAUSE YOU DONāT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.
Only thereās nothing to do - not a goddamn thing besidesā¦
Fail.
Just fail.
Why?
Why??
WHY??!?
Because the truth is - probably the truest thing of all:
You didnāt actually fail
You were on the wrong track. You were done with whatever you were doing and couldnāt see it. Or, more likely, it wasnāt you at all, it was just life - a series of circumstances brought about when you mash a bunch of humans together on one planet, all with their own agendas, beliefs, behaviors.
Maybe if you really thought about it, you werenāt happy in that job or the structure of your life wasnāt serving you (aka making you happy). Thatās how come failing doesnāt make you a failure.
Failure is a choice, not a circumstance.Ā
If you dust yourself off, learn from it and try again, someday youāll look back and remember the time when you did that thing that didnāt work, but it led you to the thing that did.
As Paul Jarvis says, āFailure may be demoralizing, but itās not that important.ā
And thatās when youāll realize that all those failure preaching optimists in those books, they might actually be right.
ā¤ļø Love you bunches,
Devin & Margaret