Fail Harder Bro
“Most people had a graveyard of failures before they had their first success.” ~ Alex Hormozi
I’d rather fail hard than not try hard. Fail it until you nail it. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? We’re all guilty of looking at successful people a certain way from time to time. You know, that notion that somehow these people possess something you never will? As if they’ve suddenly arisen one day from the throes of a glorious dream with some manifest destiny to make the best pair of underwear or something? Fast forward a couple of minutes and they’re suddenly worth billions. It sure seems to appear that way from the sidelines. Myriad trails of fails has often precluded success. This post is an ode to failure. As failure is not the end, but rather the beginning.
My dalliances with failure started at a young age—well, for all of us really as we’ve all struggled to learn how to walk and talk, but in a specific sense I had a curious urge to fix things. I was about 5 years old when one of my favorite toys stopped working. It was a New Bright Locomotive. It made realistic smoke, had some flashing lights, a train whistle sound and moved around (see the link to see the toy in operation).
I really enjoyed this toy so when the fun met an abrupt end, I did what came naturally to me, I set about “fixing” this toy. Screw drivers deployed and determined I essentially proceeded to break off chunks of plastic attempting to get into its internal working parts. My mom discovered me destroying this thing. Super glue was then employed to put much of this sad, fractured wreck back together. It turned out that the toy just needed some new batteries. The lesson here: don’t attempt to fix things without knowing what’s wrong with them first.
This failure aside, it did not deter me from risking failure in the future. I was completely immune to letting this factor steer me away from diving deep into the abyss of my own curiosity. I took more toys apart in time with increasing finesse to see what made them work. One day, I saw my father repair a cord to a corded remote-control car. Yes, it was corded. It was fun for about a few feet. I applied this knowledge to a frayed speaker wire when my mom’s stereo was on the fritz. Some careless vacuuming in the past had gobbled up this floor speaker wire, while leaving me with an opportunity to fix something. With very rudimentary wire repairing skills, I not-so-deftly but effectively connected the two frayed ends, and sloppily wound the cord with electrical tape. It was a resounding success! Not even a crackle came out that speaker! Years later, I took the stereo itself apart to repair a tuning knob when the internal connecting band had slipped off over many years of station-surfing. The stereo was from the 70s. For readers on the younger side, you’d be surprised how many mechanical components used to exist inside of a radio! All of these attempts could have ended in failure. I could have accidentally broken something else in the process or I could have simply not understood what was wrong with these components. Many scenarios were possible, but the will was present to try in the first place. It’s crucial not to write it off as something that was beyond my capability because we are all notoriously terrible at understanding what is and isn’t beyond our capability. Countless dollars and hours are wasted within our lives because we’ve decided not to see if something needed a very simple fix. But, the largest tragedy is this: when we are too afraid to fail, when we underestimate our own capabilities, we never even come close to experiencing our own potential. Failing upwards isn’t just a snarky notion we apply to successful people we don’t like who may be more incompetent skill wise (perhaps more competent at ass-kissing), failing upwards is real. It’s how that billionaire, underwear magnate came into existence. They probably had a tragic childhood wearing the most-itchiest, uncomfortable, saddest underwear and vowed to one day take the underwear world by storm. I’m sure they had spent many years trying different materials & fits just to even figure out what is ideal. Then, they had spent years developing the perfect combinations of everything else, sourcing reliable suppliers, employees, equipment, marketing, retailers, etc. Every single step of that process was fraught with failures, setbacks, and just plain bad luck. Every failure became an opportunity for growth and improvement. Even then, this captain of the underwear industry will have new learning curves for other products and other businesses, but some skills that were developed along the way will become an advantage in other arenas as well. Such experience, skill, and learning compounds over time.
If you’ve seen my Instagram posts or my shop (see links at the end of the post), you’ll find a series of successes as well as some failures. Most people reserve only their best for the spotlight. That could be why it seems like the odds are stacked against you. You look at someone’s best and you’ve never seen their worst. It sure seems like they don’t have any failures, just you. It is entirely false to assume that. It is a common feeling though. It generally occurs on days in which people are usually feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. It happens to us all. I’m an accomplished mechanical designer with a great resume. I’ve had a great run. I have much more to give in many fields as I’m nowhere near retirement age, but as an entrepreneur, I have quite the learning curve ahead of me. I’ve learned tons since opening my shop in late 2019. I’ve had successes and too many failures to name, but I keep trying. I keep adapting, innovating, and confronting aspects about myself that may contribute to my lack of major success. It’s all you can do until you achieve certain levels. That’s the best way to look at it. It’s a series of levels. You don’t achieve a goal and say, “This is it! I’m done with goals,” you’ve merely achieved another level. Those levels stack up as your life progresses.
Now, for the fun part. You get to see some of my failures. Enjoy and remember that your own failures are temporary as well. Look at them as opportunities to propel yourself to another level of mastery!
1. Birdhouse/Lamp 3D Stained Glass Project: While the colors look nice under this light, I spent way too much time and money on this project from about 12 years ago. It was initially going to be a birdhouse, but then I wanted to turn it into a lamp. It was too big, somehow despite my best efforts to make it square, it ended up not being square. There were plenty of heat cracks. I was going to give it a copper roof. What a mess! I added a posterboard roof and a clamp light just to see what it would look like “finished.” It was overly ambitious for the skill level I was at as a designer and as a stained glass artist. I learned a lot though. That’s important! I would love to attempt something like this again, but I’d probably use stained glass without soldering since I have that capability now (and I don’t like to solder). It’d be smaller as well. 🤔
2. Warped Candy Cane Suncatcher: Here’s another fail from 13 years ago. I started off with a perfectly good candy cane shape with my pattern, but didn’t know about soldering the ends of pieces with no borders to add strength so I assumed I should just add some of that Morton Strong Line to stiffen up the entire piece. It ended up having a springiness to the candy cane shape that resulted in this distorted shape. My glass selection was spot-on though. I used a red and a white that had streaky color gradations that gave it a realistic candy cane look. Adding glass pebbles for the berries and hammered glass for the holly leaves was a nice touch. I was still learning and experimenting without much of a structure after taking a stained glass class. At that point, I was fairly good at cutting and soldering regular seams, but that was about it. In the end, I’ve never used Morton Strong Line properly. I mainly stuck to not making anything larger than 12” x 12”.
3. Off-kilter Butterfly Suncatcher: This beautiful butterfly suncatcher came with a fatal flaw: the hanging loop was soldered slightly off-center. This had changed the center of gravity leaving it with this lopsided resting position. I’ve made several beautiful butterflies with the hanging loops in the center without incident, but this one got me thinking about a new approach. Subsequent butterflies were made with symmetrical hanging loops on each wing for a better chance of avoiding this kind of scenario. It also allowed me the space to add antennae!
4. Star(fish) Ornament: Festivity Fail! This star was quite poorly done indeed. It was from 2013 when I first tried my hand at making ornaments. Only one design from the original set of 4 still survives (as a design keeper) to this day. This star did not make the cut. I tried to make it out of one piece, the grinder had other plans, my skill level was at a certain point and it was a match made in frustration. Come to think of it, it looks more starfish-shaped. The picture wasn’t great either. You learn and you move on. That’s how it is.
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