Why Failure Might Be the Best Thing That Ever Happens to You

Failure is something we've all experienced... but what if it isn't actually failure at all?

In this episode, I'm sharing the story of my biggest failure and why I believe failure is often the universe redirecting us towards something even better plus why I'd always choose trying over spending a life wondering "what if?".

I'll also share the incredible story of Oprah being "demoted" early in her career, and how what looked like a career ending setback became the very thing that led to her extraordinary success.

If you've recently failed, you're scared to start something new, I hope this episode gives you the courage to back yourself anyway.

In this episode, we chat about:

• Why failure isn't always a sign to stop
• The mindset shift that completely changed how I view setbacks
• What closing my clothing business taught me about success
• Why "what if?" is often scarier than failing
• The power of influencers versus paid advertising for small businesses
• Oprah's career "failure" that changed her life forever
• Tow to forgive yourself, let go of guilt, and keep moving forward

Remember: sometimes your biggest setback is simply setting you up for the life you're actually meant to live.

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love if you followed the podcast, left a review, or shared it with someone who needs the reminder that failure doesn't define them it can be the beginning of something even better.

Follow me for more on Instagram @mindyourownbeeswaxpodcast & TikTok: @mindyourownbeeswaxpod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Mind your own beeswax. Hey, count up. Lean back.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome back to another episode of Mind Your Own Beeswax, the podcast where together we are changing our mindset and living our best lives. Today I want to talk to you about failure. And failure, that's the ultimate fear, right? That is the thing that puts us off doing hard things quite often because it is the fear of failing. I am here to tell you that sometimes failure is not the universe telling you to stop. Sometimes failure is redirecting you towards the thing that is truly meant for you. I hope this episode can give you a fresh perspective on failure and teach you that if you have failed in the past, you can actually turn that failure into a huge life lesson. Or if you currently have something that you're thinking about doing but the fear of failure is holding you back, this episode is going to change your mind and help you break through that fear. Now, to talk about failure, I obviously have to tell you about a time I failed. And you know what? Having the perspective that I do now, I think failure isn't the right word. I perhaps had a lesson, but let me tell you about it. So if we go back to 2020, I launched a clothing brand called Love from Grace. Now, prior to 2020, I had studied fashion at uni. I loved fashion. I've always loved that industry. I always wanted to be a clothing designer or do something in fashion. It was a dream of mine, honestly, probably for my whole life. Now, if you've listened to my second episode of this podcast, if you go all the way back, I talk about how I got my first job outside of uni working in fashion, using my fashion degree, and a couple of months in I got fired. So my fashion career had not been off to a hot start, and I really struggled to get a job after that, and I ended up just literally in dead end jobs doing warehousing, picking and packing. I just really wasn't going anywhere career-wise. The jobs I had picking and packing in the warehouses, they required about an hour's drive there and back every day. So I had two hours a day to basically kill in the car. So I would listen to podcasts about fashion designers, about small businesses. I was obsessed with Jane Lou from Shopo. I loved hearing her story. And I just thought about it every single day. And I would visualize myself having this business, and I actually would visualize myself a lot of the time being on a podcast, being interviewed about my business. So I would have all these daydreams, and I think I just was like, okay, I'm just gonna suss it out. So it took me a few years, maybe 2016 to 2020, where I designed a collection and I sort of researched manufacturers, and I kind of just took it slow. But at the start of 2020, I was like, right, I am doing this. So I locked in a factory, I got samples made, I liked them, I went to manufacturing, I did the full shebang. I designed this beautiful collection, I went and did a fantastic photo shoot. I still love those images. I did a website, I did marketing, I did it all. Mid-2020, I then launched Love From Grace, which was a pajama brand based online. So it just had a website and it was beautiful. I really loved it and I was really proud of myself. At the time of starting Love From Grace, I was earning minimum wage. So I had invested all the money I had in creating this business, and I worked with a factory that had very low minimum order counts. So I think I only ordered maybe 10 of each size, but I still had to order like medium, small, medium, large, a range of, you know, colours and variables. So I ordered as small as possible, but I did still order a lot and it cost me, you know, a lot of money. And I remember doing the math, and before I hit go on all this, I thought to myself, okay, I have, you know, X amount of friends. If they all buy something, I'll be good. It'll cover all my costs if I can just sell everything. And that's what sort of gave me the confidence is that I was like, I know enough people, they will all buy something, it'll be okay, and then I can, you know, use that money to buy the next collection or restock or whatever, keep funding, um, keep funding the business basically. So I went live, it was very exciting. I had quite a few orders, it was really, really good. Um, and the business kind of just like ticked along. You know, I still was working full-time, but I was sending out, you know, a couple of orders here and there for the first few weeks. It was really exciting, the images were really good. I loved picking the orders for people and writing the cards and handwriting a beautiful message, and I really sent every order out with true gratitude because to me it was just incredible that I've designed this collection, I've poured my heart and soul, it was my dream, and for someone to purchase from me, that really meant a lot. But as the weeks and months went by, I had not really sold probably like maybe a quarter of my stock, I think I had sold. And so at that point, I reached out to some influencers, and God bless this one influencer I worked with. I messaged her, I was like, I don't have money to pay you, but I'll gift you an outfit if you can do me a post, and she did. And it was so good. I actually got six orders from this one influencer posting, and I just sent her a shirt and shorts that cost me, you know, postage plus the cost of the goods, but she got me six orders, and so that actually did really well for me. But after that, I kind of went quiet, and I really needed to do some like ads, so do Instagram ads at the time I was doing, and I was spending the absolute bare minimum, but I wasn't getting any sales from running these ads. So I still had three-quarters of my stock left. I didn't have any more money for marketing, and it kind of was just at a standstill. And I remember thinking to push this further, I need to invest money because I need to reach an audience, I need to connect with new customers, I've either gotta, you know, run ads or potentially pay influencers because I'd reached out to everyone I could that would do it for free. So I just didn't have the money to market myself, basically. And it came towards the end of the year, and I did Black Friday sale. I sold a couple of things on my discount, and then it kind of just kept going. And then it was sort of like a full year, and I really still had not had many orders. I still had a lot of the stock. And I just sort of thought to myself, at the time in my personal life, you know, me and my partner had bought a house, the house needed renovations, and it would cost me, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to buy another collection or to run marketing and advertising. And I remember thinking to myself, if I spend that money on the business, I'm not guaranteed anything. And it will probably be a very long time before I make any money because it's just pouring money into the business to grow. And I kind of knew that was going to be the case. But I thought to myself, I could spend 10 grand on this business, or I can invest 10 grand in our home and you know, put in a new bathroom or renovate or fix the things that needed fixing. And realistically, investing 10k in our home, that was a guaranteed return. You know, property has good value. I knew that it would add value to the home, and so I just made the decision I don't want to do this anymore. So I left my products on the website, I kept it open. If anyone wanted to order, they could, and I slowly just stopped posting. So it was a whole year of running this business and it kind of just trickled off. And I made the decision to just close the website because I was paying website fees. Um, and a few people I like gave away a couple of the clothing items to, but I really just closed the business. That is what I guess could be described as a failure, right? I had a business and it failed. But you know what? I think the thing for me is that I'm so okay with it. I wasn't devastated, I wasn't upset, because I don't think it was right for me. And I think looking back, I'm so glad that I had a go. And I'm so glad that I failed because I wanted it so bad that if I didn't do it, I would have spent the rest of my life thinking, what if? What if I'd started that business? What if I'd had a go? I think I would have spent my whole life regretting and thinking, what if if I didn't do it. So I'm really thankful to myself that I did it, that I had a go. And I think deep down because I knew it wasn't aligned for me, it felt okay to let it go. And that failure for me is a key lesson. And I know that I will never be wondering what if. And I think retrospectively as well, a lot of the feelings that I had that I wanted to do is I really loved the idea of working for myself. I loved the idea of freedom. I obviously love clothing and fashion, but a lot of the visualizations I had was that I really wanted to be interviewed for this business and I really wanted to talk about it and speak about it. And I think I really realize that that was sort of woven through those dreams and visualizations. Is that actually me doing this podcast now? Is that what I wanted? Is that I really wanted to be able to connect with people and talk about it and feel heard and share a message. Perhaps that was actually the visualization, it was not the business. It was being interviewed and being listened to. So I think my key learning here is that my business wasn't a failure and it wasn't the universe telling me to stop. It's that it was redirecting me towards something that was actually meant for me. And hopefully it's this podcast, but you know what? Maybe this is gonna be the same. I know that by having a go, what's meant for me will find me, and what's not meant for me will move on and it will feel okay. I think that's the thing, is when you feel okay with the failure, or when you feel okay that things didn't work out, you know that it's all good and it's not meant for you. So, what did failure teach me? I wrote down a couple of dot points in preparation for this episode. So, number one, you gotta spend money to make money, but you gotta know where your money is going. And if you're listening and you're thinking about manifesting or starting your own small business, especially if you have a physical product, my advice to you is be prepared to lose money. You're gonna be out of pocket for potentially years before you ever make a profit. So you gotta spend money to make money. Next up, my second lesson was one person with the right audience can outperform hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising. I think an influencer is so powerful because when you start a business, whatever your business, even if you're starting yourself as an influencer or as a consultant or any kind of position, if you're starting your own business, nobody knows or trusts you. Why would they? And they're not gonna know or trust you via an ad. So tap into an influencer that has an engaged audience that has built that trust over the years and let them speak to your products. And so your products are spoken to by someone who is trusted, and that will help you build momentum and trust with your customers. My third lesson: failure is never wasted. It's always going to teach you something valuable. Number four, I'd rather have a failed business than spend a lifetime of thinking, what if? Can you imagine? Like, imagine if I'd never done this clothing business and I'd spent my entire life until I was like 80 or 90 thinking, what if, what if, what if? I would have always been unhappy. It would have always been in the back of my mind. And what if as well, what if you saw someone, someone else, create your idea? Like if you had a really specific idea for a business and then you saw someone do it, how mad would you be? Like imagine having such a clear dream and then seeing someone else do it or they've beat you to it. Have a go because failure is always better than a lifetime of wondering what if. And my fifth and final hot tip, which you know what, I'm really banking on this one, is that failure might just be the universe pivoting you in the right direction. And I hope that with this podcast, you know, my my small clothing business failed, it's pivoted to me to doing this podcast, and maybe, maybe that's exactly where I'm meant to be. I read a really incredible article about Oprah recently, and I love Oprah. I didn't realize, so she started out super young in her TV presenter journey. So she at 22 was a co-anchor on the evening news. And at the time she landed this job and thought, wow, amazing! Like I'm only 22 and I'm an anchor on a TV show. But she would get overly emotionally invested in the stories that she covered. And she continuously got feedback from the network that they were saying, you know, you can't be this invested. We need you to deliver the news with no kind of emotional overlay. And that's just not who Oprah was. She eventually got removed from the evening news and was reassigned to a daytime talk show. Now, you would think that that's a failure, right? You land the job as a news anchor. Like if you want to be a presenter or a journalist, a news anchor, that would be the dream. That would be the absolute pinnacle of your career. Poor old Oprah was booted from the news desk and sent to daytime talk show TV. The article talks about how poor Oprah was absolutely devastated and they referred to this movement in her career as a demotion. Isn't that awful? Imagine being demoted. The station actually also said they didn't even want to pay out the remainder of her contract, they just wanted her gone, so they got her on daytime TV. Now, the qualities that got Oprah kicked off the news desk were her being too emotional, she had too much empathy, she was too warm and too emotionally connected to the people she was interviewing. That's exactly what made her extraordinary as a talk show host on daytime TV. And she did so well trying to just be emotional, be herself, be authentic, that that's what led her getting landed the Oprah Winfrey show. And I think that's incredible, right? You think she got the top job, the absolute best job, and she failed. It wasn't right for her. She got redirected into a news space that is probably not what she wanted at all, but in actual fact, where the universe directed her to, that is exactly where she needed to be. Had Oprah remained as an anchor on the news, she would have been seen as this very serious, very professional journalist. But instead, she was on a daytime show where she was allowed to be emotional and personal, and that's what led the audience to connect with her and they loved her. And then, spoiler, Oprah is who she is today. She's wildly successful. Her show ran for years and years and years, and people love her. And she would never have had that if she had stayed in that job at the news desk delivering the nightly news. So isn't that amazing that someone like Oprah, who is one of the most successful people in the whole world, only has that success because she failed? So if you found my episode today because you have failed something recently, and perhaps you went on Spotify and you searched up a podcast on failure, I want you to ask yourself, what did I learn from my failure? And what happened after that failure? Can you figure out all the values, all the skills, and all the lessons you learned because of that failure? And then can you look at the timeline after that failure and see the good things that happened? See the lessons that you learned that add value to your life, or see new better opportunities come your way. Or did you just learn that's not for me? And so you've closed that door and you don't wonder what if anymore. Hopefully, now you've reflected on any past failures. And my final step is that if you are still holding on to any guilt or any shame around that failure, the final step after reflecting on it is to forgive yourself. Because having those sad feelings and having regret, having guilt, having shame, they're very low vibration. So you have to forgive yourself. And when you look at your failure through a lens of lessons, through a lens of understanding where it's putting you towards better things, you can truly help forgive yourself. So that's my last piece of advice is that if you're working through failure, forgive yourself and move on because that ain't gonna add value to your life if you're just feeling depresso espresso about it. Forgive yourself, use those lessons to build you up and rocket you forward. And if you're thinking about doing something and the fear of failure is holding you back, I hope that this is your sign to just not give a fuck. Have a go. Because the worst that can happen is that you fail and you go, well, that wasn't for me. And at least you won't be asking yourself for the rest of your life, what if? What if I had a go? What if I did the thing? What if I started the business? What if I asked that person out? What if I applied for that promotion? What if I put an offer on that house? Have a go because even if you fail, you'll know that the universe sent you in the right direction anyway. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. If it added value to your life, I would love if you left me a comment if you're on Spotify or if you're on Apple, leave me a review. Send me a message on Instagram, give me a follow, share this podcast with a friend who you think might enjoy it too. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope this episode finds you at a time that you need it the most. And as always, love you. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Mind your own beeswax. Hey, counting out. Lean back.