Weekly-ish Wisdom from Jennifer Kem

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Why I Love Failure

Why I Love Failure

I have learned to love failure.

I know that sounds possibly counter-intuitive and it may even feel a little cliche since you might have heard from other people that failure is a good thing.

But it’s true.

Failure allows you to see what you need to do and what not to do. Failure allows you to see what’s not working and get better from there. Failure does all that of that and more. Whether you’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time or just starting today, which is the gutsiest thing you could ever endeavor on, entrepreneurship is a course in both leadership and failure.

When you start a business, it becomes a brand the moment you transform your passion and purpose into a business that actually cares about about their customers, well that’s what it means to me, at least. Whether that business takes you around the world, running an Etsy store, or building a personality brand, the truth is that the essence of your brand is how you make people feel and how you execute on that promise.

But in order to get the most out of that experience, you have to fail.


You read right: you have to fail a few times before becoming the next Michael Jordan, Elon Musk, Beyoncé, or whoever it is you look up to the most.

I like to look at life as one big baseball field. We’re all constantly running from base to base in hopes for a home run. But like baseball, not everyone makes it the whole way. Sometimes, you might trip on your shoelaces or someone may have caught the ball, forcing you to go back and try again.

It’s like how Babe Ruth, baseball’s all-time home run hitter, was also known as the all-time strike out champion. He believed that the more he swung his bat, the more likely he’ll have the chance of hitting the ball. The more I thought about this, the more it made more sense: he was willing to fail as many times as he could for a chance to succeed.

That’s the same type of mindset that you want to have when running your business. It may not seem like it, but failure is the fuel both you and your business need in order to grow and prosper.

Be sure to stay tuned for next week’s blog post about the 5 ways to transform the way you look and deal with failure.

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  1. hopeinspire

    Good morning Jennifer! Your post totally resonated with me. Failure and I are long time friends. Unfortunately, I see a lot of it as what have I done wrong. Though I’ve wanted to give up, I haven’t given up on my biz (started back in 2012). I still manage to fall flat on my face at times, but I’m also growing. Now, I’m focusing more on gratitude as that helps me see things a little differently. I’m also learning more about mindset and trying different strategies that could work for me. It’s there where we will succeed or fail. Thank you so much for your post and I love the baseball analogy. Perfect. 🙂

  2. Char Rhinehart

    Love this! “He was willing to fail as many times as he could for a chance to succeed”. That’s powerful! It’s a perfect reminder of the courage and persistence we must have as entrepreneurs. Thanks for sharing, Jennifer!