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.

Meredith Simmerman

Reney’s Honey Butter began out of failure! After picking blackberries for hours, Meredith, the owner of Reney’s Honey Butter, came home with a conundrum. What in the world to do with all of these blackberries! After creating every blackberry dish she could imagine, she made a Blackberry Honey Butter with ingredients sitting on her kitchen counter. Read more>>

Sean V. Bradley, CSP

I was born into failure. I had one of the most horrific child hoods you can imagine, violence, torture, poverty, fear, pain, neglect, abandonment are just a few words to describe my early reality. I was sent to a violent juvenile facility as a kid from 12-15 years old. Read more>>

Synithia Williams

My first failure as an author was losing my first agent. I don’t consider the original rejection letters I received as a failure, because I accept that rejection is part of the process. Everyone isn’t going to like my stories and that’s okay. I met my first agent at a writer’s retreat. We hit it off and I reached out to her because I had a few requests for full manuscripts from publishers. Read more>>

Ciara Mckinzy

When I first started my business in 2014, what I I believe to be a failure was miss management of the money that came in, and not knowing how to invest it back into the business not really being able to source the products like I needed to, in order to see a profit. Read more>>