It’s 6 AM on the 2nd of April. I started reading this book by Michael E. Gerber, “The E-Myth Enterprise – How to Turn a Great Idea Into a Thriving Business,” and this sentence (from the Forward section) caught my attention:
“A free market system provides one with significantly more opportunity to fail than it does to succeed.”
It completely changed my perspective on failure. And so, I’m writing this blog to change how you see your failures—no matter the area of work: business, blogging, coaching, consulting, or freelancing.
Please continue reading…
Underlining the problem
My present venture, effiClub, which is a community for freelancers, isn’t growing the way I expected. It’s been roughly 3 months since the launch, and I’ve only got 50+ members in my club, around 100+ in my WhatsApp community group, and even after these many months, I am not able to launch version #2 of the club’s website.
Though the growth numbers aren’t so appealing, I am not a failure yet. It’s a start. Let’s call it a slow start instead.
But yet, I feel like a failure.
It’s weird, because I have not worked much on effiClub yet. Neither have I invested much into it. But I still feel like it’s already dead.
Strange!
BUT WHY?
Why am I feeling this about my dream startup? I believed in effiClub’s vision, and I still do. But how can I grow something if I have this failure-reminding feeling settled deep within me?
And if I had not started reading this book, I’d never have addressed this serious problem. It gave me an underlying clarity on this issue.
A little bit of my failure background
In 2015, when I was in 11th standard I tried writing a book “The Nuts & Bolts of Life.” It covers the theories I built on how “Life” is born out of mind and body disregarding any sort of supernatural involvement. NEVER PUBLISHED
In 2017, during my 2nd year of graduation, I tried writing a fictional novel, “The Story of Golan–the boy who got castrated.” NEVER FINISHED, NEVER PUBLISHED.
Then I got fascinated about startups. In 2020, I got a job as a content writer in an eCommerce B2B company, wrote many blogs for them, and started my own blogs too. First blog, second blog and the third… ALL FAILED SLOWLY
My fourth blog “nxtdecade.com” survived and worked. Made some money too. But I didn’t continue as I got attracted to some new idea and got busy there. That new idea was “1millionblogs.com”. I started blog mentoring here and helped several bloggers to start. Few of my mentees are doing great on their blog even today. But instead of focusing on my mentoring, I started building it as a digital agency. Hired people, paid them and tried to scale it up. Got a bunch of clients, built and made money too. But ultimately I didn’t like working that way. ALL GOT STUCK SOON
Now, I have effiClub.com, which is my dream startup. I love it. I love the community. It’s even working and doing great. But I have this strange feeling of failure, which is certainly not true. I am also mentoring freelancers here at “mentoringwithsatya.com” and it’s going great too. Enrolled 4 students in March.
I was/am in a free market and I was/am failing and fighting. That’s cool! Because in a free market, we fail more. It’s an opportunity to fail. Thanks to Michael for underlining this so clearly.
Let’s now understand why I am feeling failure.
My New Perspective: Self Labeling
In the past 6 years, I have been doing a lot of things in the free market. And it’s also evident too that I was failing more than succeeding. As a result I have labeled myself as a failure.
This was my biggest mistake!
Even my Mental Wellness coach, Nivedita Bhadury, pointed out in a session that I need to stop labeling myself with something that’s not my characteristic. I didn’t fail, but my blog. I didn’t fail but my business.
If I start a new business, it has nothing to do with my past failures. And, like Michael E. Gerber said, in the free market we get more opportunities to fail. Failing is normal. Don’t carry its load.
So, effiClub is not a failure. Me feeling this as failure is because of my labeling. If I could remove, which I am trying to do, because failing is normal in the free market, I would easily be able to grow my this startup.
Additionally, each failure taught me something new, therefore getting success is much easier now.
How This Relates to Freelancers?
I’ve spoken to many freelancers one-on-one, and almost everyone is struggling, failing, or rising again. Any freelancer can easily relate to this.
With our new perspective, these failures are not YOU. Don’t carry the label of these past failure with you. Because a free market system provides freelancers with significantly more opportunity to fail than it does to succeed.
If you are a freelancer and yet not checked our eBook.
Click here and read how to unlock 1lakh/month income.
Find me on LinkedIn.
Inspiring. That’s what I would say about your journey. And speaking of failures, I’ve got an insight too: “If you aren’t failing, then you aren’t trying enough. Failure gives you an opportunity to grow and get better.”
So, all these times that you label as your “failed projects” in this blog are the times you tried and learned something. Most people don’t even take the opportunity to try because they’re too afraid to fail.
I’m sure you already know this perspective, but I still wanted to add it. All these projects are the building blocks to show. Amazing blog!
This means a lot.
You’re right, most people don’t even reach the stage where they can “fail.” That itself says something. That’s exactly what pushed me to question why we call these attempts failures in the first place.
Great blog, well said. We label ourselves without knowing our capabilities. Actually failure leads us towards success and clarity in our motive. Your story is truly very inspiring to all and today you are stepping the ladder towards success,by learning through your failures. This blog also teaches us, that we should never let ourselves down because of failure instead learn from it and move forward with more clarity. Thanks for such a thoughtful post.
Thank you so much.
You said it really well. We often judge ourselves too quickly and miss what we are actually learning. Glad this connected with you.