What if the key to winning more is talking about your failures more often? It sounds counterintuitive, especially in a world that celebrates perfection—but avoiding failure might be the very thing holding you back. High achievers often fear failure so much that they play it safe, miss opportunities, and limit their growth.
Today, we break down a powerful mindset shift: why openly talking about your failures can desensitize fear, build resilience, and even make you more credible in business and life. If you’re ready to stop hiding your setbacks and start turning them into your greatest advantage, this simple habit could change everything.
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Mindset Hack: Talk About THIS All The Time
Talking About Failure Desensitizes Fear And Builds Growth
I am so glad you are here. I absolutely love telling you things that you would not expect. What is the thing that you need to talk about all the time? First of all, I will tell you why. Because if you talk about this all the time, you are going to have so many more wins than you have ever had. What do I want you to talk about? Your failures. What? I think that sounds so weird because failing is equated with dying. When you are a high achiever, “I cannot fail.”
Why Talking About Failure Builds Confidence, Credibility, And A Winning Culture
“I did not fail because I did not stop going.” “I have never failed before.” That is all bullshit stuff that our ego tells us because failure has been demonized by society. Failure is an amazing tool. Here is why I want you to talk about it. Number one, it desensitizes you to it. If you are afraid of failing, you never go all out. You never try as hard as you can. You always play it safe. I say that as someone who was super terrified to fail.
I was so terrified to fail that I missed opportunities. When I realized that just owning the fact that I had failed was actually a superpower because I was not afraid of it anymore, I wanted to talk about it constantly. Even on social media, I did Fail Fridays for almost a year, where I listed a gazillion failures that I had never been willing to talk about before. I knew that I had learned from each and every one of them. Look at failure as another way of saying learning.
Failure molds people. It helps them develop the grit and character they need to be truly successful. Share on XNumber two, another reason you want to talk about failure all the time is if someone has not failed, people know that they do not have the experience they need to really navigate the tough times, especially in business. When I worked with private equity and venture capitalists, and they were looking to invest in entrepreneurs, they never wanted to talk to someone who had not had a big failure in their past because what that teaches people and what that helps them with from a character perspective, you cannot replicate without failure.
If you are not talking about it, you may literally be looked over for a promotion, for an investment, for someone believing that you have what it takes to do things, because failure molds people. It helps them develop the grit and character they need to be really successful. Look, we can all get lucky and have something go really well for us. I certainly have, lots of people have.
If that is all you have ever experienced and you have not experienced failure, you have got one coming. You may as well get it out of the way, talk about it, and let other people learn from what you learned and really embrace how it changed you for the better. Number three, and this is a huge one. I worked in a big old stodgy corporate and did very well, but was bored and hated that they would not make those big changes in the marketplace that would really help clients.
If you embrace failure and talk about it, then the people around you will be more willing to take calculated risks. They’ll understand that sometimes risking failure is the only way to win big. Share on XIt would be exciting and fun. I realized that it is because nobody was allowed to fail. If people failed, they got fired. When that is your culture, nothing great is ever going to happen. Keep in mind, if you embrace failure, if you talk about failure, the people around you are going to be willing to take calculated risks. They are going to understand that sometimes risking failure is the only way to win big. Whether that is your direct reports, your employees, or your kids.
How Billionaires Were Taught To Embrace Failure Early In Life
You want people to know that taking a risk, that failing, that learning instead of winning is okay, because as soon as it is, you are going to be stacking up wins like you never have before. Are all the people you care about. Right now, I am on a soapbox big time. Let us seriously get behind failing and let us get behind failing in public and telling people we did it. I will give you one last example, because if you do not believe me, let me give you an example from someone far more successful than me.
Sara Blakely and her brother, whose name I unfortunately do not remember, are both billionaires. Billionaires. Two people from the same middle-class family in Florida. You know why? IT’s because every night at the dinner table, the question their father asks them is, “What did you fail at today?” Not, “What did you achieve? What did you do well?” or “What was the best part of your day, which is what I would ask kids if I had any.”
A way better question. “What did you fail at today?” It’s because they got to share the lessons and the learnings, and they got to be desensitized to failure early on. If you do not want to take it from me, and I have done okay, take it from a couple of billionaires that desensitizing yourself to failure and talking about it all the time like it is no thing is going to get you to all the things you do want. Here is to your success.
