Failure Files

Every guru preaches “fail fast” like it’s a badge of honor. They’ve probably never had their house on the line, never had employees depending on them, never watched $450K disappear into a failed venture. They’re romanticizing failure from the safety of their consulting practice.

I’ve failed. Spectacularly. Publicly. Expensively. The skincare business that burned through nearly half a million. The oil filtration company killed by the recession. Multiple ventures that just didn’t work. But I’ve also succeeded, and the difference isn’t what these failure fetishists are preaching.

This section shares real failure and real recovery: when to quit versus when to push through (it’s not what gurus tell you), recovering from business disasters without the motivational BS, learning from failure without glorifying it, and why “fail fast” is terrible advice for real entrepreneurs with real stakes. Truth about failure from someone with actual scar tissue.