Over the years, after talking with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, artists and creatives, almost every success story we’ve heard has been filled with stories of failure. Unfortunately, in our view the media rarely covers these parts of the story – instead we often read summaries that make it seem like success happened “overnight.” However, what we’ve learned in our conversations with so many successful folks is that failure is core ingredient in the recipe for future success. Below, we’ve shared some fascinating stories of failure from folks who have ultimately found great success.

Liz Tran

To be honest, my whole career has been a series of failures and learning curves. I initially moved to LA at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue screenwriting, my childhood dream. Before arriving, I applied to USC’s screenwriting program and got rejected. I was so determined that I made the rejection date my iPhone passcode—to remind myself to keep pushing. But the pandemic made it nearly impossible to network or find industry jobs, so I pivoted. I started working on hip hop music video sets through mutual connections back home in Read more>>

Byron Nicholson

I participated in The House of Style Barber and Beauty Salon’s apprenticeship program. Originally a 2 year program, ended up being 3 years due to Covid 19’s shutdown and licensing issues. After what seemed like an eternity, I confidently took the practical portion of the state test. I was so excited to get the results only to find out I failed. To make it worse, we weren’t informed on what parts of the test was incorrect or the final score. This part of my life was confusing. I wasn’t sure how I worked so hard, but yet at a standstill. I lost all motivation and wanted to quit. Thank the Lord I didn’t. Months passed and I found out that I was 3% short of a passing grade. With some extra studying and motivation from my team, I went back and got what was mine. July 30th, 2021 I received my license. This pushed me to start working towards learning the art of photography. I vowed I would wow myself again. Read more>>

Stella Taylor

I recently got into printmaking. Intaglio. Within the last year or so, I’ve never experienced failure like I do with copper plate etching. But, that’s also a weird part of the fun with printmaking. Read more>>

Erika Boehme

This isn’t just a story of a failure, this is a story of MANY failures. Where I used to wonder, in existential agony, why am I here? I now KNOW the power I have to create worlds. Read more>>

Linda Moore

After successful career in other fields, I decided to try novel writing. I completed a novel and submitted it to the San Diego Book Awards. Not only did I not win, I got ruthless criticism. I am grateful to those judges because I realized my writing successes in other areas–author monographs, journal articles and essays, did not prepare me to write fiction. I didn’t know what I was doing. Read more>>