Note: This is the question. Check out the answer.
Failure sucks.
It’s frustrating, often gut-wrenching, potentially embarrassing and always disappointing.
If you’re alive, you’ve probably failed.
You probably didn’t like it.
It probably seemed like a pretty shitty experience at the time.
You probably felt like a loser.
Welcome to the club.
You’ve no doubt heard well intentioned rhetoric about failure as a stepping stone. Sadly, it’s become a cheap cliché. Easy to pay lip service to, but much harder to actually live when it means being scared or humbled all over again.
Admitting failure can be tough too. It’s scary to lay it all out, plain as day, how much and how often you’ve fallen short. How thoroughly inept or inadequate you’ve felt. Intellectually we know (or are told) it’s part of a process, but it can still land a pretty devastating blow on your self esteem.
Of course the devastation is self-inflicted. In order to judge ourselves inadequate we’ve first got to have some preconceived notion of what adequacy looks like. It’s the preconceptions which are faulty not our capabilities. It’s the expectations we should question, not our innate worthiness as human beings.
I know the preconceptions are faulty because it turns out there’s actually a very strong correlation between suckage and awesomeness. I was genuinely awed, and even comforted this week to learn how much failure Derek Sivers had weathered in a single year. Is it any coincidence that his successes are equally epic?
Makes sense. Anything worth doing means stretching well beyond your present capability, and that means—for a time at least—you’re going to suck at it. That’s okay. And it has to be, because it’s pretty much a law of the universe.
Earlier Emilie asked me to contribute a story to her compilation of spectacular, life-shattering failures. And, ironically, I kind of failed at it. I contributed some abstract, general thoughts on failure while cleverly avoiding telling a personal story. Thought I’d rectify that.
So, here’s my glorious (if somewhat abridged) history of humiliating failures. Don’t judge em, celebrate em.
Failing Spectacularly since 1982
| 1982 | Three weeks late being born (already behind schedule). |
|---|---|
| 1980s–90s | Struggle with social phobias throughout formative years. |
| 1994 | Develop a crush on a girl in my 6th grade class and change my choice of high-school just so I can to see her again. Then never approach or speak to her about it. |
| 1995 | Mortified during a piano Eisteddford when minutes before competing, realize the fly on my pants is broken causing them to perpetually fall down when I walk. Too embarrassed to even mention this to anyone, I do my best to look natural while hobbling on stage without bending my knees, perform in a cold sweat and disappear as quickly as possible. |
| 1996 | High School concert goes awry with singers straining their voices and giving me desperate looks half way between “help me” and “what the fuck are you doing?” Realize I’ve started playing in the wrong key and the number completely breaks down. |
| 1997 | Continue pattern of low self esteem and social awkwardness at every opportunity over next six years. Repeatedly crushed or embarrassed in interactions with the opposite sex due to not knowing the first thing about dating—or relationships in general for that matter. |
| 1998 | Suffer further performance anxiety during another competitive recital where 10 months of suffering through Rachmaninoff ends in cold sweats, frozen hands and a horrific wreck. Judge’s comment is ‘never play faster than you can think’. |
| 1999 | First time singing in college musical. Just awful. |
| 1999 | Allow an obsession over an unrequited love to darken my entire college life. Sink into self-indulgent spiral of unworthiness and manage to alienate all my closest friends. Barely speak with them for next 10 years. |
| 2000 | Develop a phobia of social gatherings. Become socially recluse. Avoid my class yearbook photo, college formal and other social venues. |
| 2001 | First real girlfriend dumps me after three months and takes up with an actor from the show I am music-directing. Spend as much time feeling sorry for myself as I did in the relationship. |
| 2001 | Consistently overreach and fall-short in my study of classical piano. Inspired by Liszt’s second Hungarian Rhapsody but fail to master it. Sustain RSI through a demanding practice regime that’s never fully corrected. Continually overshadowed by Chinese genius-kids with overbearing parents and super-human powers of concentration. |
| 2002 | Form a band and write several inspired songs but am too shy to perform them in public. We practice for several months but never do a real gig. |
| 2002 | First attempt at directing / producing a stage play (which I also wrote). Nearly catatonic with anxiety before the first performance having never managed a single rehearsal with the entire cast and crew. |
| 2003 | Again play the romantic fool for a new love interest by sending her a lavish bouquet of flowers and a card reading ‘from your secret admirer’, latter walking around in a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘I am your secret admirer’ (and her name). Should have picked a muse without a boyfriend. Awkward. |
| 2003 | Realize that I’m miserable in the 9 to 5 and that I’d be better off going to a performance arts school. Since the auditions are 2 weeks away, I cram for 3 of them at once and suck on all counts. Now I’m depressed, and a failure. |
| 2003 | Quit my dead-end job to go and make something of my life only to take it back again weeks later when the CEO woos me with his grand plans for the future. Hanging on just leads to despondency. |
| 2004 | Unable to have a real heart-to-heart with my dad; even as he lies on his deathbed. The emotional wall between us is too much. |
| 2004 | Yet another romantic misadventure is over before it’s started. |
| 2004 | Compose and produce music for a show, but find, minutes before opening, that the entire program of sound and music has somehow corrupted and has to be reprogrammed. I’m a little tense. |
| 2004 | Compose and produce music for another show but a bug in the sampler deck causes a track to cut out in the middle of a live performance. Here’s the original track. |
| 2004 | I suck at balancing levels without foldback monitors and get hammered in the review for playing everything too loud. |
| 2005 | Emotionally burned out, turn to a corporate path thinking it will provide a more practical track to success. Eventually just grow to resent it. |
| 2006 | Having finally found a girl who loves me to bits, I break her heart by sleeping with someone else. |
| 2007 | Spent capital and six months of humid evenings toiling in a barren, Bangkok apartment on a software product idea. Released a half-baked, buggy demo and then never promote or updated it. |
| 2008 | Run out of cash when my only consulting client decides to cut funding to product development; fly back to Australia on borrowed money to look for a new job. |
| 2008 | Land a plum management gig but quickly discover that producing work and managing people to produce said work are entirely different skills. Also discover why most managers seem to be idiots. |
| 2009 | Spend nine months building another software product which received widespread interest and praise and then lost interest and abandoned it without figuring out how to monazite. |
| 2010 | After spending three and a half years, countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars earning a masters degree in a technical field, realize I have no use for it and I should have invested everything in entrepreneurship instead. |
| 2011 | Only published a single blog post for the entire month of March. Exactly 5 words in length. |
Also, I’ve let fear hold me back from things I really wanted to do, I’ve made important decisions and commitments based on pleasing others rather than living my truth, and I’ve never filed a single tax return on time.
So: think your suckage can hold a candle to mine? I very much doubt that but if you’re feeling foolhardy you’re welcome to tender your candidature by leaving a comment 
Tweet this post and join the suck-club. Don’t forget the hashtag #failweek
Wow man that was rough.
But you know what, I’m feelin inspired by it. Thanks for sharing so thoroughly! That takes a lot of courage and a lot of failure.
I look forward to your success now.
LOL
Thanks David. Yeah, I guess it does seem rough when you get 28 years worth of failure in one dose. Fortunately you only have to live it 1 day at a time. I had a lot of wins along the way too—thought I’d just point that out 
Ah, Lach…sending you a hug across the miles for that! I know several things you don’t suck at, and one of them is being my coach and friend.
Being a musician seems to have so much room for suckage potential. One of my most painful was being kicked out of a band because I was spending too much time pursuing a guy I really, really liked and not enough time practicing, and to add insult to injury, he dumped me without a backward glance and ended up replacing me as bass player in the band. Ouch, and ouch. I was devastated and humiliated for months after that. Aarrgh.
Takes lots of guts to post something like this, and I admire you for it. Blessings to you!
Anything worth doing carries with it a risk of failure. One thing that helps to overcome that fear barrier is to define success as overcoming the fear to act. It takes the pressure of getting a particular result and makes you focus on bettering yourself. Thanks so much for sharing your story, Laurie.
I was 8 days late, too, Lachlan. Birth was the first catastrophe. And your comments about how “no pithy phrase” can salve the pain–thanks. It’s far more human and affecting (to me), than a list of “triumphalism.”
At the risk of sounding pithy–I’d rather listen to a musician who has failed and agonized and been heartbroken than some cocky Adonis Bon Jovi any day of the week (and I do).
Best,
M
Thanks for the props, Mark. I think a lot of wonderful art is born of a struggle with heartbreak; but also from love and joy. For all things a season.
Big LOVE to you Lach!
You are an incredible man-person to share your failures with complete transparency. It’s clear to me that you are gifted beyond the telling. This post is great reminder that failure and angst are part of the journey.
Cheers to your fear-crushing success!
P.S. LOVE the double face palm image!
Thank you so much Shann. I truly value your support. Big time.
One of the most bold posts I’ve read on the internet (including my own). This was heartbreaking, Lach, but you certatinly lived up to the spirit of your blog. It took a lot of audacity to do that.
Hopefully you’re now on your way to the second theme of your blog, think big and live remarkably. We’ll be right here cheering you on.
Hugs!
Honestly this was a tough thing to do. And a lot of that was heartbreaking at the time. But no longer. I’m different now in so many ways. For me, to consciously engage with your fear is the path to being remarkable. Thanks for the props.
First off, playing anything by Liszt or Rachmaninoff is a bitch, so the fact that you were inspired enough to attempt it pushes your efforts way out of the failure realm! Beautiful music, painful to master. (Prelude in C Sharp Minor was a senior recital piece of mine…C Sharp Minor is possibly the most horrible key to play in, ever!)
It is interesting to read thru this compilation of failures because, wow, that’s a lot to deal with in one lifetime (that hasn’t even hit 30 yet)! You look at a list like this for life, and there are two reactions. There is “Damn, this has been a disaster! I need to give up the pipe dream and do something with less risk of suckage” or “If it hasn’t gotten me down yet, it isn’t going to start now!”
Those two simple reactions say a whole hell of a lot about a person.
I pick option B! There’s no doubt about the C#. Rach. was a manic depressive with freakishly big hands. Liszt was a cyborg from outerspace. About as close as you can come to unplayable. So awesome though. I intend to fail a lot more in the years I have left! Thanks, Elisa!
Secret? I have freakishly big hands as well, thus why my evil teacher picked it. Warmed up I used to have an octave + 4 key reach thumb to pinky. My Mom used to tease me that they had me play piano because it was a way of making the ridiculousness of my giant hands attached to tiny 6-year-old arms more meaningful.
The life lessons we learn from things like piano lessons.
Freakish doesn’t begin to describe you, Elisa.
I want to “favorite” this comment reply.
“Huh” and I thought you could’nt top your prior blogs… Alas, you’ve managed to take Audacious up a substantial # of Octaves! Major kudos! Now if only you would try falling at a book based on this kick ass blog you so bravely shared???? Oooh, how much richer we all would be for reading it and having at ones finger tips instant access to the brilliant quickening such a book would provide. It would greatly assist us in transending the ego and just LOL at our beautifully imperfect selves!
mucho gratitude,
you wonderfully imperfet dude
I’m still working at transcending my own ego. He’s a persistent little bugger. I’m sure I’ll get around to failing at a book in the not-to-distant future. Thanks for the kind words, Ann!
Damn, Lach, all I can think right now is the Seth Godin quote.. “Real artists ship.”
If these are all the failures you’ve shipped in your time, then I’m beyond excited to see what you come up with next.
Here’s to resilience.. and the art of audacity! Remarkable example of shipping the latter in this post, I think.
I’m a failure factory, Tessa. Check it!
I could probably come up with a list this long as well though I’m not quite sure I want to relive the moments by creating the list! We all screw up, fail, fall down, and act stupid. But it doesn’t define you. I want to see your list of out of this world accomplishments next, I bet it’s at least as long.
Indeed. There was certainly some work involved in coming to terms with all of that and declaring it. But it’s also helped me to let some things go. Accomplishments, check. Still writing them down
Have you read the book ‘Psycho Cybernetics’ by Maxwell Maltz? It contains some mindblowing insights on the phenomenon of success and failure.
Great post Lach. The list shows your willingness to keep taking risks and persist despite the fear and the previous setbacks. Keep surging forward Lach!
I haven’t read that book, but thanks for the tip Dom! What did you take away from it? Surge I will.
Probably my worst fuck-up in the past couple years was getting together with a girl who I knew was abusive and unsupportive. Two months into the relationship, she dumped me for her ex-boyfriend… in the middle of a conversation about how bad a boyfriend he was.
Proceeded to play the broken heart for three to four months afterwards.
To top it all off, I began playing the game we bonded over–which I considered her a loser for playing–in an attempt to stifle the hurt. After two months of playing nearly every day, was told by my closest gaming friend that he “uninstalled (the game)” because he “didn’t want to be a loser.”
Fail much?
Woot Annie! Great to see you here; and congratulations on being among the rare few to have the guts to confront that so openly. Seems you got mixed up with some kids who were pretty confused themselves. Most everybody goes through something like that at some time or another. So thrilled to see the way you’ve taken that in stride and moved beyond it. You’re really crushing it right now.
My gamerisms are rubbing off on you!
You know, I’ll admit to being afraid to talk about my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. I can also admit to being coaxed into doing so only out of further fear that she would someday call me out on being who I am–and ultimately realized that you can’t let something be so personal that you let it rule you.
I may not be an open book, but there’s a lot to be said for coming forward before the shit hits the fan and your secrets get blabbed at the worst possible moment.
And thank you for helping me every step of the way–I may have had the power to move past everything within myself all along, but it’s hard to say when I would have mustered up the courage to do so without your encouragement.
There’s a lot to be said for having a vision; daring to fail; daring to be different; and acting even when it scares the hell out of you. You’re a fucking maverick. I’m so thrilled to see the awesome work you’re doing Annie.
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Da-amn, what a great post, Lach!
When I read about Fail Week, first I was mortally envious that I hadn’t thought of it myself, then I was all ready to join in, then I wrote a babbling, self-indulgent pile of steaming crap, then I procrastinated, never fixed it, and missed the boat on the whole thing. Fail and a half.
In this post, you masterfully did exactly what I couldn’t figure out how to do: write about the failures without being depressing, whiny, or cliche. Nicely done. Bonus points for how frickin’ inspiring it is that someone so awesome had so many screw-ups on the way!
I’m flattered you think I’m a screwup
Keep at it Cara—I know some day you’ll find that epic fail you’ve been reaching for!
This was really heavy stuff man. I appreciate you for sharing all of that with us.
Performing is a big issue for me. I didn’t realize it was such a big issue until I my first solo performance in college in a class made to help improve our skills as a performer. I was nervous, but apparently I was more nervous than I thought. I got up to sing and could barely get the notes out. Right after that I burst into tears upset that I was such a screw up. My professor got up and offered to sing the song with me with our backs turned to the rest of the class. It was nice to have her up there to help me and I was grateful to be in a supportive environment, but this just felt like something that would never get better.
A couple of months later and I’m still not comfortable performing in this type of “formal” setting but it is getting better. At my recital last week I sounded shitty but didn’t cry until I was out of everyones sight. This crap is hard.
To be able to look our fears in the face takes a lot of courage. You are inspiring. :] Screwing up makes life interesting!
First of all—you’re not a screw up, Dyamond. It takes a lot of courage to do what you did. Most people wouldn’t even stand up. Most people are scared silly even to speak in front of a group, let alone singing. It’s hard! If you’ve got the courage to stand up the way you did, you’ve got the tenacity to master that challenge. Let’s talk about it.
Lach,
I love this post and I can relate to it so much. I think we probably share the same romantic history with a few minor variations here and there. I think the only difference is I broke up with my two girlfriends and those relationships were complete failures. i once said my resume is like a dotcom graveyard, with stories of failed startups, horrible working environments and crazy people. When I look at failure the perspective I try to keep in mind is that the dots only connect when you look back at them as Steve jobs said in his Stanford speech. I love the honesty of your post here. You’re not afraid to share you who are with the world
. Kudos to you for doing that.
Thanks so much for sharing, Srini. So glad to know this spoke to you. So true about things taking on completely different meanings with the benefit of hindsight. Just for the record, I often am afraid. But I do it anyway
I figure if it’s not a little scary, you’re not really stretching yourself. Thanks for the props man, much appreciated.
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