038: The Price of Success is Failure

Starving Artist No More

Over and over again, in my work as a creative entrepreneurship coach, I hear some variation of the question, “but what if it doesn’t work?” Fear is a natural part of trying anything new, and for most artists and makers and creatives, focusing on the business side of their creative enterprise is indeed a new thing. Much of what we do as creative entrepreneurs is objectively hard! But if we never try anything new, we’ll never get anything new. Taking risks and trying new things is a vital part of what it means to be a thriving artist. And when you are bold enough to take risks, failures will happen. They’re unavoidable! The price of success, quite literally, is failure. But if that’s true, how can you conquer your fear of failure and allow yourself the freedom to take risks? How can you learn from the failures you experience so you don’t get stuck in a failure loop?

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to think about your own personal definition of success, as it relates to your work as an artist and entrepreneur.
• What mindset shifts can help you let go of your fear around failing.
• Why it’s important to reframe your “failure” experiences and learn from them, rather than regretting them.
• How to take your failures and turn them into growth experiences that help you succeed in the future.
• What your community of creative colleagues has to do with how you personally handle both success and failure.

In this episode, I share a quote from Fauja Singh, the world's oldest living marathon runner. You can read more about Mr. Singh here. I also discuss passages from the books Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life by Madeleine L'Engle and 26 Marathons by Meb Keflezighi, and I mention one previous episode of this podcast, 010: What You Need From Your Business.

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog.

Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.