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.

Noel Obusan

Back in 2016, I had just gotten laid off, I had dropped out of college, and pretty much had nothing going for me. I felt like the whole world was crumbling down. The only thing that motivated me was my family, I couldn’t give up on them. I wanted to make my parents proud, and not just that, but to help them out. Read more>>

Devon Zander

Triumph, let’s start with my company name. Why did I chose that word. Our company logo is a large golden Phoenix rising from the ashes. Triumph is a synonym for victory. Its means to prevail despite the difficulties we may encounter and to do it with joy. A motto, if you will, to remember to always keep rising despite our failures and have an arsenal of humor to carry you back to center.. That’s life, that’s business, that’s the journey of us humans. Triumph was born after the death of a dream in both my personal life and business. I had worked for another company and planned to take over, but it fell through. I was left abruptly jobless, had ended a long term relationship, and as a single mother of two young ones, felt lost and alone. I was incredibly unsure what my next move was. So, I got quiet and finally got on my knees and started praying to the big guy. Then one day someone told me just because one dream dies, it doesn’t mean a new one can’t be birthed in its place. We may just have to change our perspective and be ok with a hard pivot along with a leap of Faith. Then it came to me, what’s stopping me from paving my own path from scratch? I have all the resources, gifts and tools I need for my mission in the world, I just have to choose to use them. It was in that moment, I decided I would start my own company for the first time ever. I went online and created my LLC and website name, then taught myself how to code and get a website up. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I knew I loved serving animals and people, I knew my passion and heart was in it to win it. That’s why I knew it was time to birth something new and take a leap of faith that God would give me a perfect wind to take flight… and oh man did he show me how proud he was for honoring my truth, my heart, and rising despite the crushing failures I was feeling. It was a heavy time, letting go of a lost dream with a man I was supposed to spend my life with, and my career direction. I was told to have faith to start the company and just simply be me everywhere. I walked around and simply trained my dogs. People approached me, and every single client I had since the birth of the company two years ago, is a referral. I realized that my community and support was way bigger than I could even see. Sometimes we think we’re alone, just to discover that we are supported more than we know. It’s just sometimes not always from family. Sometimes it’s from people we would never imagine, you just have to stay Curious, you just have to stay open. HEART OPEN. Read more>>

Heather Adams

In 2010, I was laid off from a job where I had been for the better part of a decade leading a team and an area of the business where I had worked my way up in the company and felt like I was an invaluable part of the company. I remember it so vividly because I was the head of publicity across the company and I was working with our biggest marquee brands and authors that we represented at the company. I had been in New York that entire week and I had taken our whole publicity team to pitch our latest catalog to major national media outlets. We were going back and forth all over Manhattan from one major outlet to the next. Read more>>