Your Failure is Giving You A Signal

The minute you switch the narrative from “I’m embarrassed to fail,” to something like, “failure is a signal,” you start to win.

Let me share two failures I’ve recently had.

First off, I tried to launch a group coaching class a few weeks back. I sent out emails to my database, I posted it on social channels, and marketed it as best as I could with the tools I have.

Nothing happened.

Then, a few days later, I sent out a discount code. Same process.

Nothing happened.

Another day went by, and I said, “Only a few spots remain” to try to generate some sense of urgency. Despite several spots remaining.

Nothing happened again.

I mean, I started to think my emails were all going to junk. Maybe they were, or maybe they were just junk themselves.

The deadline I had set for this group class had passed. Nobody signed up.

Like a guy at the Farmers Market who didn’t sell any product, I sort of packed up and quietly walked away.

Maybe the group program was overpriced. Maybe it just wasn’t a good value proposition. Perhaps the timing was bad. Maybe people didn’t read it. Frankly, it doesn’t matter; the point is, I didn’t sell any of them.

And that’s ok.

Two months ago, I launched a course on my website. A thirty-module program with video and content to help improve your mindset. I put quite a bit of work into it, perfecting it to where I thought it would be valuable.

I’ve marketed it on my website. I’ve marketed it at the bottom of emails. I’ve marketed it on social channels and even on my LinkedIn, where I have almost 15,000 followers.

Two months later, not one purchase.

And that’s ok.

It’s a signal. It’s a signal that tells me something like I don’t have a big enough audience, or I haven’t nailed the value proposition, or perhaps I’m not pricing it right. The list goes on. It’s a signal that is telling me I need to do something different.

Now, I could pack up my stand, walk away, and cry about it. I could get angry and turn on my audience. I could shove my programs down their throat repeatedly, over-marketing it if you will. There are a lot of ways I could go.

But if I do that, I’m not listening to the signals.

Failure is all about signals, but there is one key thing you must be willing to consider through that failure. You have to put yourself out there in order to get those signals.

If I never created the course, I never would have known it wasn’t priced right, or that it wasn’t marketed right, or that maybe it just sucked. The same goes for the group coaching class.

Putting yourself or your product or your service out there for the world to see, frankly, for the world to judge, is the hardest part of it all, but until you do that, you have no clue if you have a gold mine or if you’re sitting on spoiled goods.

Most people never even get access to the signals because they refuse to put themselves in positions where rejection is possible. They sit in meetings talking about ideas for years. They tweak logos. They overthink websites. They ask twelve friends for feedback on something that has never even touched the market yet. They convince themselves they are being strategic when really they’re just hiding from judgment.

The market doesn’t care how long you worked on something. It doesn’t care how passionate you are about it. It doesn’t care how badly you want it to succeed. The market responds to value, timing, positioning, trust, attention, and about a thousand other variables that none of us fully control. The only way to learn any of that information is to step into the arena and let the world react to what you’ve created.

One of the most dangerous things people do is interpret failure as identity instead of information. They think the failed launch means they’re not smart enough, talented enough, or capable enough, when really it often just means the message didn’t land, the audience wasn’t ready, or the distribution wasn’t strong enough yet. That’s a very different conversation. One attacks your worth as a human being, while the other simply gives you clues on where to improve the system.

Imagine if stand-up comedians quit after their first bad set.

Imagine if a startup folded after the first investor said no.

Imagine if a musician stopped releasing songs because one album flopped.

Failure isn’t the thing stopping most people. Embarrassment is. The fear of looking stupid publicly keeps people trapped in private mediocrity for years while pretending they’re “waiting for the right time.”

At some point, you have to decide whether you want to protect your ego or build something meaningful, because most meaningful things are built on top of a pile of awkward launches, missed shots, ignored emails, bad timing, and moments where nobody claps.

The people who eventually win are usually just the people willing to stay in the game long enough to understand what the signals were trying to tell them all along.