I'm a failure
and so are you
In the interest of continuing to listen to the generous feedback I received from many of you a couple of weeks ago, I’m still taking a break from my full-fledged writing this week.
Instead, I want you to watch this video I was reminded of the other day. It’s a talk from Jack Conte. If you’ve heard of him, you likely know him as either the CEO of Patreon or half of the band Pomplamoose. But I’m guessing most of you haven’t heard of him.
When I share my stories about how things aren’t exactly going great or how I don’t feel successful, I wonder if readers will think, “Wow, this guy sure likes to complain,” or “Why doesn’t he write about something positive for once?” Nobody has ever said either of those things to me directly. Maybe they unsubscribe, and that’s fine. Not that many people do that either, though.
But why?
It’s because we’ve all been there. We’ve all failed countless times. I’ve bought so many domain names over the years that I never used. I failed earlier tonight when I said something dumb to my wife instead of waiting for a beat and not blurting out the first thing that popped in my head. Who knows, this post might even be a failure.
Watch the video. And then tell me about something you failed at recently.
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Had not known about Jack Conte, though I've grown plenty of duds myself. Always hid them, while keeping up appearances with a traditional, 'stable' job, which ate up so much of me, it's little wonder creative endeavours flopped.
For the first time ever, I'm fully throwing myself at the wall, hoping I'll stick. Scary af. But today you remind us that failures will layer in among the successes. Not if, but when they happen, we gotta stay the course. We must let our grit determine our path, rather than fear. So needed to hear this. Lyle, thank you. Sending much love, hope and strength.