From Setbacks to Success: The Power of Failing Forward

My life for the past 2 years has been interesting. As I was starting to grow up and my mind was too occupied with the thought of ‘what will I do after highschool’, I started researching info on how to make money on the internet. Just to get that little head start ahead of my peers. After all, what is there to lose?

Actually, there is. And it is your credibility when the business you’ve been hyping up fails. The business that you’ve been telling everybody around, even people who don’t understand a single bit about what you’re actually doing. Then they usually ask ‘how’s your business doing?’ And you have to shamefully admit that it indeed did not make you a millionaire as you told it would.

Well actually, there are 2 big takeaways from this. One thing is a positive and one’s a negative. The negative thing is that you told everyone what you’re doing. Right from the start you brought expectations onto your name, you put yourself under pressure, when in fact you don’t know anything at the beginning. You might’ve thought that the fact that you failed was the negative part? Wrong

Failure isn’t just a helping tool to become succesful. It’s MANDATORY in order to succeed. Technically, everything I’ve ever tried on the internet has been a failure. Tried dropshipping winter waterproof gloves on TikTok almost a year ago. Failed massively, never made a single penny on that shopify store. I quit but realised my mistakes. Bad product, bad videos, untrustworthy suppliers from China. But now I know that dropshipping isn’t as easy as dropshipping gurus make it out to be just to sell you their expensive course.

I also failed at creating a clothing brand. I wanted to make a streetwear brand, also marketed prominently on TikTok. I failed massively with 0 sales made. But I have realised my mistakes and moved on. My video quality was bad, definitely will get a professional camera when starting a clothing brand next time. My design was alright, but ultimately I failed because of bad marketing strategy.

And these are just 2 of my failures, and trust me, there has been many.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? I have made a total of 0 money on both of these stores. But i’m hell of a lot smarter than before I decided to try them out. It was actually a blessing in disguise. At the time I thought my whole life was a failure because my peers told me so. When in fact, it’s a Win for you.

Who knows what will happen with this newsletter in the future. In 2 months I might tell to myself ‘What was I writing?’ and that my writing is so amateur! I might fail a couple times before I realise the magic potion to writing articles.

But one thing I already know is, that I will not quit.