At school, we’re taught that failure is bad.
That you’re punished for shit work. That you’re meant to be good at something straight away.
Things don’t get much better in adulthood.
We deem a fuck up at work as a catastrophe.
The fear of getting something wrong. Worrying about making a mistake. Being laughed at by your workmates.
Worse still, getting fired.
We don’t do much better in our personal life.
Start a hobby and can’t master it in 8 weeks? You then give up on that hobby altogether. Another pile of shit, gathering dust somewhere in the house.
That guy or girl annoys you on your 3rd date?
Back onto Tinder and start swiping. Again.
Our Relationship With Failure
I recently updated a blog post of mine. About what I’ve learned from failed startups.
These posts are always interesting to write.
It’s good to look back and see how far you’ve come. You can’t always know how much you’ve learned until you review your progress.
But it’s also a tough process.
Another failed project?
You feel like shit, yet again. And start the process of beating yourself up. Telling yourself you are worthless.
And that’s down to our conditioning.
We’re brainwashed from a young age. To think we need to get things right all the time.
That we can “memorise” what we need. To remember some formula, way of doing something. The order of events that happen.
Like your maths times table. 2 x 2 = 4.
Or the kings and queens of England. Henry VIII’s 4th wife. And which of his wives he beheaded?
It’s all a load of bollocks (more on this later).
Embracing Failure From A Young Age
I saw a Reel or TikTok a while back now.
It was of a young lady. Mid 20’s, I’d say 30 years old, tops.
She was being interviewed on stage at some big business event. I had no idea who she was. What business she owned, or, how successful she was.
But she said something amazing.
And it was about reframing failure.
She said she was very lucky. From a young age, her father had reframed failure in her and her sibling’s minds.
After getting a little excited when asked the question about failure.
Laughing she said she had a love of it, from as early as she can remember.
How is this possible?
Well. In her story. Every evening they sat around the dining table eating their evening meal. Her Father would ask every one of them. “So what did you fail at in school today? And what did you learn from it”?
Smart man.
It taught his children the value of trying, failing, and learning (we’ll chat about this in a second).
And that the only true way to become great at something is to be bad at it. A lot. For a long time.
Is Failure The Only True Way To Learn?
My short answer.
I’m not sure.
If you listen to someone like Alex Hormozi. His view on learning is down to the rate of learning. How fast you can pick something up.
How long. Or how many times do you have to do something and not get the results you want. Before you start learning.
OK.
I like the concept.
But my problem with this, is you still beat yourself up if you aren’t getting the results you want.
It’s still a bit like the school system. You’re a moron for still getting it wrong.
So how do we reframe it?
Well, I could start spouting about Babe Ruth, Thomas Edison or Andrew Dyson. About how many times they failed.
But, that doesn’t show the process (more on this later).
It gives the wrong impression. That it’s failure after failure. Then as if by magic. You strike oil, you find gold.
You don’t.
It’s more layered than that.
These quotes gloss over the things that they learned. The person they evolved into.
The process they went through to go from failure to failure, without losing hope. And what they did every time to continue to improve.
So, what’s the answer?
Well, there’s a practice called ‘Kintsugi’ and it’s rocked my world.
The Japanese Art of Kintsugi
I can’t take any credit for discovering Kintsugi.
Or link it back to failures and building a business.
I was watching one of Dan Koe’s YouTube videos. And I’m sure it was him who introduced the concept.
But since I saw that video on YouTube. I’ve felt better about my past failures. All because of Kintsugi.
So, what it is?
Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery, and ceramics. With gold lacker. Or other ways to bond a ceramic back together.
But the gold lacker method stuck with me.
Here are a few ways that Kintsugi can repair broken ceramics.
Types of Kintsugi:
- Crack (ひび), the use of gold dust and resin or lacquer to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing pieces
- Piece method (欠けの金継ぎ例); if a replacement ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is gold or gold/lacquer compound
- Joint call (呼び継ぎ), the use of a similarly shaped but non-matching fragment to replace a missing piece from the original vessel creating a patchwork effect
What sticks out with this method of repair, is the use of gold. In dust, resin and lacker form, as well as a compound.
It’s about nothing going to waste.
Don’t throw something away because it’s “broken”.
In the Western world. Even if it was an expensive piece of pottery, we tend to throw it away. Yes, sad at the fact it’s broken. But that because it’s broken, it’s now worthless.
There’s a great program on TV here in the UK. It’s called “The Repair Shop”. And there’s one lady on there Kirsten Ramsay. Who is incredible at repairing ceramics. To the point where you can’t even tell it was ever broken.
What I like about Kintsugi is that it isn’t about hiding the fact something got broken.
It’s about highlighting it.
With gold no less.
Putting a high value on the repair material and process.
Using Kintsugi To Reframe Failure
This is why I loved the concept when I first heard it.
Going back to people like Andrew Dyson and Thomas Edison.
You don’t see or hear the process they went through to create the lightbulb. To build a better vacuum cleaner.
That you don’t see that the “gold lacker” is their journey.
It’s even harder to see it in your journey.
Rebuild Yourself After A Failed Project
I started my own “business” journey back in 2011.
I’ve lost count of the number of failed projects that are in my “Project Graveyard” folder on Google Drive.
And after every failure.
That moment you decide to end a project.
During the process of shutting it down. Switching everything off. Whatever that looks like.
Well, there’s a lot of “self-abusive”.
Yes, you need to review and reflect. You need to have difficult conversations with yourself. To look at what you did wrong. Have brutal honesty about why you failed.
But because of our broken school system.
You feel like shit. That a failure means you’re a failure.
Which is complete horseshit.
Going back to the lady who was being interviewed. She reviewed her failures each day, around the dining table with her family. And that it was fun. A great thing to do.
Why?
Because they talked about what they learned.
They were discovering little pieces of “gold lacker” every day.
And that’s what we don’t do. Or realise when part of a project, or an entire project crashes and burns.
That we’ve got these pieces of gold we can use to start rebuilding ourselves.
You Only Fail If You Quit
Do you think, that when a project comes to an en, is that it’s over? That you will never reach your goals, hopes and dreams?
But a project is a vehicle, that is a leg in the journey to our goals. That, if a vehicle breaks down. You can always get another form of transport.
That we don’t sift through the rubble from a project crumbling to discover pieces of gold.
Which we can turn into a lacker to help us in the rebuild process.
To rebuild ourselves.
On my journey. I had one project that ended up in a mess. It broke me. So much so that I had to stop focusing on personal projects for a while. I gave myself 3-6 months off before starting something new.
But I didn’t stop completely.
I picked up the broken pieces of myself. And started working on a new project.
Some of those projects have ended up with paying customers.
Why?
Because I’d ended up with lots of gold lacker from that project. Along with other pieces of gold from earlier ventures. I was able to start putting myself back together again.
That my “cracks” are important.
Because it means I’ve learnt and grown.
A “Real-World” Example of Kintsugi
I’m not going to share pictures of me repairing pottery with gold lacker.
Or even talk about what I’ve learned from my failures. (I’ve got a blog series for that).
But I’m going to talk about something I’ve learned from one of the biggest YouTube stars on the planet, Mr Beast.
Sticking It Together Piece By Piece
I’ve watched a few podcast interviews with Mr Beast.
And he’s very generous with sharing what he’s learned. Discussing his top tips for growing his YouTube channel from nothing to where it is now.
One podcast episode I found more interesting than others.
Why?
Because he talked about his process. Which is always overlooked because we go straight to the end result. The success.
In the early days of his YouTube channel. Mr Beast focused on improving one thing between his last video and the one he was recording, editing and publishing.
Even now. He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars split testing the thumbnails on his videos. Trying to improve the number of clicks a video gets.
So what’s his “Kintsugi” process?
Going back to his early days.
He would record a video, edit it, and then publish it. He would look at where that video was “broken”. What was the missing piece of the ceramic? That he could stick to what he’d already pieced together.
In other words, what part of the video needed improving?
Using “gold”, which was his constant learning, he would stick that piece on. Improve that part of the video.
And, as I’ve mentioned. He still does it today.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.
That getting something wrong isn’t a bad thing.
In fact, it’s a good thing. A blessing.
Something you should discuss at the end of the day.
Conclusion: Failed Projects = Gold
Having something “fail” isn’t a bad thing.
That having a catalogue of failures is a good thing. It means you’re learning.
We have a terrible relationship with failure. Which got implanted into us from a young age.
But if you go panning for gold. You’re sifting through broken rocks to find tiny pieces of gold.
You’re past failed attempts are the broken rocks. There’s gold between them.
You can then use all these failures and the concept of Kintsugi to turn the gold into a lacker. And start putting together the pieces of you that were broken off.
Don’t waste these failed attempts and give up.
You’ve produced something of high value.
You might not be able to see it.
But it’s there.
And it can help you build the life you want.
Good luck!
