about failure failure what does that
word make you think of how does it make
you feel can you feel your breath
starting to come shallower can you feel
your heartbeat beginning to rise can you
feel this pit of anxiety starting to
form in your stomach now I’m super
excited to be here with all of you today
but I’m feeling all of those things and
more standing up here right now and it’s
not just because I’m a little afraid of
public speaking but it’s also because
I’m here today to show you what it looks
like to be a living breathing walking
bundle of failure now she told my 21
year old self I’d be up here talking
about my failures I probably would have
rolled my eyes and been like yeah right
and that’s because one I was kind of a
brat as a kid and two I actually thought
it was possible even likely that i was
going to go my entire life without
failing even once I mean I had never
failed I worked hard I got good grades I
went to the name-brand school I even
graduated early from that school up
until I was 21 I had done everything
right and I thought the rest of my life
would be smooth sailing because of it
and then I graduated and I went out into
the real world and oh boy was I wrong
see I thought that because I’d always
done everything right that meant that I
was going to set the world on fire right
out the gate even with a degree in
English and studio art see looking back
I don’t understand why I thought that
was possible getting a degree in English
and studio art and looking for a job
right after a recession but at the time
I was convinced I could do anything with
that job and so after I graduated I
decided I was going to become an
elementary school teacher with a program
called teach for america or TFA so it’s
my first day as a fourth-grade teacher
and I feel more than prepared to be an
amazing
teacher I mean I’m a newly minted
college graduate I graduated fourth
grade like 10 years ago how hard can it
be then I walk into the first first day
of my classroom and I look out still
feeling pretty good I see this sea of
smiling angelic nine year olds and then
they stand up and I realize oh my god
nine year olds are huge seriously they
are all taller than me so from day 1 i’m
already doubting my place as an
authority which makes me absolutely
clueless when it comes to managing a
classroom i tried being friendly then i
tried being mean then I tried talking
over them then I lost my voice which
made me silent and mean I did all of
these things and more in the first two
months in the classroom and when one
strategy didn’t work one day I tried
something completely different the next
basically I was kind of a mess and I let
it destroy me I up and quit after just
two months on the job because I was
convinced that I had failed which meant
that I was a failure so I packed my bags
I moved back home I moved back in with
my parents and I’m feeling absolutely
humiliated and I’m not just feeling
humiliated I’m feeling pissed off I
can’t believe that after after having
worked so hard I’m back at home like
like I was in high school I feel like
the world has wronged me somehow and
then I get introduced to the startup
world one day and suddenly it feels like
it’s okay for me to be a failure because
everyone in the startup world is a
failure seriously in the startup world
we talk about failure a lot and we like
to talk about it we talk about it so
much we don’t even call it failing we’ve
come up with our own buzz word for it
it’s not failing it’s pivoting
so my startup friends taught me that I
hadn’t failed by quitting Teach for
America I just pivoted into something
new that something new ended up being a
marketing job at a venture capital firm
which on paper should have been perfect
for me I liked startups and I’d actually
found a job that appreciated a degree in
English and studio art but even though I
had forgiven myself for pivoting out of
TFA that doesn’t mean I had learned
anything from it I still had this need
this instant gratification for success I
I craved it and in this new job I lived
for those moments where my bosses would
tell me i was a superstar but my bosses
were really busy and so they didn’t say
things like that very often and when I
didn’t get compliments from them I found
myself thinking we eat does that mean I
did something wrong does this mean I’m
bad at my job and so I did exactly what
I did back when I was in the classroom i
overcorrected see I wasn’t getting
positive feedback from my bosses but I
was from people in other parts of the
company so what happened was I started
working on my job less and less and on
other people’s jobs more and more we got
to the point I was avoiding my bosses as
much as humanly possible but
volunteering for projects on the other
side of the company which let me tell
you from experience makes for a very
tense and awkward work environment for
everyone so this goes on for a little
less than a year and my bosses call me
into their office and we sit down for a
long talk about cultural fit and staying
in your lane and we we decide that I
should probably start looking for
another job so at this point I’m 23
years old I’ve been out of college two
years and I’ve already gone through two
jobs and even worse I’ve just been fired
from one of them and a part of me is
starting to think ha maybe maybe it’s
not that maybe it is me maybe I’m not a
very employable person and so instead of
looking for another job I decide to take
another pivot and start my own company
instead
now owning a business is a great way to
get that instant gratification I talked
about earlier because every day you have
the power to do what you want to do but
that doesn’t mean I didn’t fail there in
fact I probably failed even more I just
couldn’t handle it the same way that I
did when I worked for someone else I
couldn’t run away from the problem or
push it off on someone else or pretend
it didn’t exist if I wanted to make
money I had to be uncomfortable and make
mistakes and act in the moment learn
from my mistakes like I remember calling
up clients promising them I knew how to
do something and then being on Google
trying to learn the thing that I
promised I already knew it was a protege
help me more than one time it would have
been so easy some days to just up and
find another job to close down the
business but that’s where i realized
that i’ve been thinking about mistakes
and failure all wrong see i thought that
i had figured it out when i learned how
to pivot because i thought it came down
to accepting mistakes and and failing
fast but there’s also such a thing as
failing too fast and i think this is
where the startup world gets it wrong
see by saying that it’s okay to fail
fast it also sounds like it’s okay to
run away from hard times that’s why
anymore instead of thinking of failures
in terms of pivots I like to think of it
like driving and skidding on an icy road
think back to a time when you’ve been
riding along and all of a sudden out of
nowhere you hit a patch of ice and go
sliding think back to that that surge of
adrenaline think back to your palms
sweating that gasp think back to that
feeling of sheer terror because you have
no idea what’s coming next now our
instinct says that we should steer out
of the skid we should try and get back
on course exactly direction we were
coming from but drivers ed and a lot of
fender benders has taught me that you
want to do exactly the opposite what you
want to do is steer into the skid you
may hate it it may terrify you but you
have to embrace it if you want to get
back on course
now my last big skid in September 2015
and up until this point I felt pretty
good about my company I was learning a
lot I was having a great time with my
clients I felt like an adult for the
first time in my life and then two of my
clients called me up on the same day and
both told me that they were closing down
and going out of business now to clients
may not sound like a lot but for me that
was half of my predictable income every
month then another client called me up
out of the blue cancels our contract she
tells me she’s hated the work that we’ve
done together for the past six months
and suddenly I’m starting to feel back
like I did when I was teaching suddenly
I don’t even know if I can pay rent
anymore and I start to feel unemployable
only now I feel like I can’t employ
myself let alone ask someone else to
hire me and I feel frozen at the wheel
wanting to steer out of the skid but
having no idea where to steer to now
this goes on for about two weeks two
weeks of me not being able to eat not
being able to sleep I have no idea what
to do but it’s all I can think about and
I wanted to steer out of that skid but I
didn’t I kept going with the company and
even though it’s been scaled back now
I’m so glad that I’ve kept it alive
because in the last year and a half I’ve
gotten to meet so many new clients and
work on so many companies and learn so
many things that I’ve never would have
learned before and I’m not going to lie
it’s been hard sometimes leaning into
that uncertainty and it’s stressful and
it’s scary and I don’t know if that ever
goes away but what I will say is that
once I stopped looking at life in terms
of successes and failures or even in
terms of pivots I became a lot more okay
with that uncertainty so the next time
you feel that hang of anxiety welling up
in your stomach because you know that
you failed at something don’t try and
push it down or forget that it exists
recognize it embrace that skid and
somehow some way you’ll find a way to do I’ve on thank you