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.

Brandon Rains

Straight out of high school I started interning for a local production company. It was my first experience being on my own and I learned tons from that experience. Read more>>

Michael Boston

Yeah, so actually the first time I went to perform an original song it was for some college media organization on Ohio University’s campus called Friday’s Live, which was meant to give students experience in producing a tv show. Anyway, I pulled up, and during the performance I got lost in where I was halfway through the song. I blanked on the lyrics with like thirty people watching and five giant cameras in my face. Read more>>

Emily Wiitanen

Right after I had filed for my DBA, my father had accompanied me to an appointment with an accountant. I knew how to operate a camera but I had no idea have to manage the back end of my business! The accountant had asked me what I wanted to know and I told him everything and anything that he had to offer! My father and I left that meeting with a feeling that we were not expecting. Read more>>

Scott Burgett

During October of 2021, I was sitting in my home office. It was a normal day, getting ready to hop on a coaching call when I received an email from my assistant coach saying that if I could not meet his salary requirement, then he was going to leave. This came out of left field as we had not talked about this whatsoever in the weeks leading up to it. Read more>>

Victoria Yassem

Failure is all in how you look at it. I fail every day, multiple times a day actually. As a mom, wife, and business owner- I mess up all the time! If you look at these times and learn from them it’s not really a failure anymore is it? There was one time a great connection and a friend of mine referred me to a client he was working with to help with their marketing- Read more>>

Johnnie Butler

I just experienced my first successful/profitable year in 2022. I have been freelancing full-time since 2015 and have since experienced a range of valleys and peaks when it comes to being self-employed. I believe that developing a forward-thinking approach is key. I didn’t have that when I started and simply survived off the motivation of keeping the lights on, which isn’t a sustainable solution. I ultimately found myself struggling to handle work loads at the time and in turn lost valuable clientele along the way. Read more>>