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.

Gage Vota

I went into the pandemic owning a concert venue called Thunderbird’s Event Center and touring in a pop-punk called Stage Moms. March 20th 2020 was basically the day that everywhere collectively decided to shut down and I was in Austin Texas on tour. We had to cancel the tour and drive 21 hours straight to get home. During that drive we ran out of money and had to post online asking for donations so we could get home and my landlord saw the post and decided to message me saying she was going to raise my rent by $200 a month until the pandemic was over. Read more>>

Victoria Jayne

My debut novel was picked up by a small press. I wrote it for NaNoWriMo 2017. The publisher put it out in December 2018. I had a beautiful cover. The editing was quality. Unfortunately, six weeks after release, the publisher dropped me. The publisher worked primarily with adult contemporary romance. My book was the only adult paranormal romance she had on her roster. My failures in marketing meant the book sold very little. Thankfully, she gave me all the files back and signed the rights back over to me. Read more>>

K’Shana Hall

As an artist/creative you’re going to experience failures. Sometimes that’s on a daily basis. It can be a small as a new medium not working out the way you planned or something a little more crushing like not getting into a certain show or fellowship program. Keep in mind that the scale of importance often shifts. Pouring all of your hope, time and efforts into a new medium… it can be devastating when it doesn’t work the way you envisioned it. I feel like when you create work and share it with the world you open yourself up to rejection. It’s kinda par for the course. Read more>>