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.

Kirstin Protsman

In 2018, I had a been a freelance designer for about 5 years and decided I wanted to experiment with custom t-shirt designs. I figured the best way to get started was to go all in and buy all the equipment I needed. So that’s what I did, even after my husband who works at a graphics and shirt shop advised me against it. Read more>>

Clarrie Johnson

I remember growing up in the South Suburbs of Chicago. The population of my high school was 99% Black students. I remember one class when a teacher I admired stated that he had quit Corporate America to become a teacher. I thought to myself, “Why would this White man quit Corporate America to teach Black students?” Read more>>

Jdaja Williams

The story of a failure I experienced in my life was me being able to profit and gross 100k in a year from my company to profiting $20k yearly . It was a hard pill to swallow however I am the one who decided to stop trying and aiming for what I wanted . One of my favorite word of encouragements is , when life tend to take its twist and turns ,no matter what you have to keep fighting for the things you want because if you quit, everything you don’t want will deliver itself on a platter to you . Read more>>

Sarah Carvalho

I always joke that I’ve had approximately a million different careers in my short(ish) life because I’ve always bounced from job to job. I was always searching for what I wanted to ‘be when I grew up” and each job I took just didn’t seem to be it. So whenever that same gut feeling came around (usually about a year into a new position), I felt that it was yet another failure under my belt. And that feeling of failure just kept compounding every time. Read more>>

Amanda Wilde

When it comes to my business, deciding not to continue to take freelance clients was a sobering day. I stopped building my business how I thought I should and returned to a traditional workplace. Accepting that failure was hard to do. Taking the time to step back and listen to myself helped me find my passion and purpose as a designer. While I failed at maintaining a steady stream of freelance clients, I opened up my creativity to follow and create projects that gave me purpose and energy. Read more>>