Failure is a Gem

In Wayne Dyer’s 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, Dyer’s number two secret is to not let your passion die inside you. Don’t get to the end of your life and never follow through on your intuition. Listen to your right brain, your feeling side; follow the journey it takes you on, the one you were meant to have.

Failure is essential to success. I used to disagree with that, that failure was the end of the line, the worst thing that could happen. I thought failure was about defining myself as the ultimate loser, that I would never get anything right. Thinking of failure like that is a judgment. It’s not based on reality. Now failure takes me to experimenting with another technique, maybe it’s similar to what I was trying, tweaked a bit and gets me to my personal success like with my paintings or self-promotion.

I look back and think of all my accomplishments because I failed at one attempt that got me to my present moment. I am grateful for my failures because they took me to beautiful places, like a trip to New Zealand that was to be three weeks became almost three months; a month-long painting scholarship to Rome that landed me seven weeks in Italy making new friends everywhere.

On a smaller scale, failure has taken me to jobs I interviewed for that didn’t always work out while making new connections and learning about another business. I don’t feel attached to the outcome of what didn’t work out; I’m grateful for the practice, what I learned and continues to teach me as time passes. Finding the silver lining in failure is the ultimate gem.

What failures have taken you to where you are now? What happens when you re-frame what you once thought was a judgment?

—Interview written by Amanda L. Mottorn, © 2022, author of Finding Moksha: One Woman’s Path in Uncertain Times and Artist at Modern Moksha Designs & Publishing.