Q&A

Photo: Courtesy of Robyn Peel

This post is part of the Q&A series, “Artists & Changemakers On…,” where artists, creative entrepreneurs and social change agents share their thoughts on each month’s blog theme. Today I’m thrilled to have Robyn Peel share her thoughts on celebrating failure.

Robyn Peel is a coach, mentor and facilitator who wants everyone to live bold, meaningful and fulfilling lives. Like last week’s Q&A guests, I met Robyn while attending the Pioneer Nation conference earlier this year (seeing a pattern?). In truth, I owe Robyn a debt of gratitude for inspiring this month’s theme. It was while talking with her during one of the conference sessions that the idea of celebrating authentic failure – the genuine attempt at creation that completely bombs for one reason or another – began to crystallize. Robyn and I both agreed that, too often, we rush to judge people whose projects aren’t home runs the first time around instead of viewing failures as an opportunity to dissect the situation, figure out what went wrong and make adjustments for the next attempt.

Naturally, I had to invite Robyn to share her thoughts on celebrating failure for the blog this month. Here’s what she had to say.

What role does failure play in your creative work?

Over the past few years I have become much more willing to try things out with no expectation as to whether they will work or not. I use the word “play” when I am starting on something new, as it allows there to be more lightness about the journey. And it is almost impossible to fail at playing! I use this play as a time to explore and learn; to notice what works and what doesn’t and to learn from both. I believe we can always improve and grow in our lives. The things that work and the things that don’t will always teach us something.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learned on failure?

Failure is a perception not a reality. What one person deems a failure another person deems a success. And the way we respond to what doesn’t work will shape our future. The people who are seen as successful have a different attitude to trying and failing. They are willing to throw mud at the wall and see if it sticks. If it doesn’t they will try something new and see if that sticks. They just keep trying and trying and then one day will be deemed an overnight success!

I believe failure leads to innovation and change. We are not going to get something new if we are afraid to try and risk failing. We need to be bold and try things to get the brilliant and life-changing actions this world needs.

Have you ever celebrated one of your failures? What happened and why was that failure a good thing?

Last year I planned a “walk and talk” event where a group of people would come together to discuss a topic (Redefining Success) and walk through nature at the same time. It seemed to sit so well with my mantra: “Connect with Yourself, Connect with Others, Connect with Nature.” Rather ironically, with the topic as it was, no one turned up!

So I just did the walk myself and thought about what success meant for me. What once would have shattered my confidence – having no one show up at an event – became an opportunity for me to get clearer in my head about what I wanted in life and what success meant for me (and it isn’t about the numbers in any sense of that word – income, blog hits, number of clients or number of people at events). I embraced and celebrated that failure so much that when I came home so happy my partner presumed I’d had a great turnout!

What do you think keeps people from talking openly about failure?

Too often in the public arena and in the media people who fail are picked apart and dragged through the coals. They are publicly ridiculed, and that is something we are so afraid of. We deem failure to be something that we must keep to ourselves at all costs.

As a society, we seem to celebrate successes so openly but keep failures hidden away. I think this keeps us from changing or finding solutions to so many problems we face. It’s time to talk about all the things we try, whether they work or not; someone else could take our lessons (or failures) and find an amazing solution.

What advice on failure would you give other artists & changemakers?

Let’s start by not actually calling it failure. You tried something and it didn’t work out as you had envisioned. You have learned, you haven’t failed. To me it is much more important to try than to succeed. By giving something a go, you are much more open to success than if you stand on the sidelines hoping and wondering “what if?” Be open and curious about the things in your life that didn’t go as planned. What can you learn from them? What can you do differently next time? Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – learn and grow with every experience.

Thanks Robyn for sharing your story! Follow Robyn Peel as she works with 20-somethings to help them get clear on who they are, what they want and then to make the conscious choices to bring that dream into reality. You can connect with her on Twitter and Google Plus.

Photo: Courtesy of These Are Things

This post is part of the Q&A series, “Artists & Changemakers On…,” where artists, creative entrepreneurs and social change agents share their thoughts on each month’s blog theme. Today I’m thrilled to have the illustration duo Jen Adrion and Omar Noory share their thoughts on celebrating failure.

I first came across the work of Jen Adrion and Omar Noory, the creative duo behind the paper goods and brand illustration studio These Are Things, while at the entrepreneurship conference Pioneer Nation. The two were keynote speakers sharing the evolution of their company, which delivers travel themed art to customers and retailers in all 50 states and over 40 countries. Jen and Omar have grown their business to the point where they work with major brands like AFAR, Airbnb, American Greetings, HOW and Southwest Airlines. Luckily, they didn’t shy away from discussing their growing pains during their talk. Hearing that they had endured stumbling blocks and, dare we say, failures was a breath of fresh air. It was great to know that, despite any setbacks, they continued to fight for their creative dreams and were willing to examine missteps to glean lessons for the future.

Encouraged by Jen and Omar’s story, I immediately thought of them when I decided to devote the blog to failure this month (wait…did that come out right?) I invited them to share their thoughts on failure within the context of their work, and here’s what they had to say.

What role does failure play in your creative work?

J: Failure is an essential part of any work, and I feel like this is especially true for creative endeavors. It’s a natural part of the creative process.

O: If you really are doing anything worthwhile, you’re going to stumble as you’re learning and growing. Failure is such an intrinsic part of our everyday life that we don’t even notice it anymore. It actually feels strange if we aren’t failing because that means we aren’t pushing ourselves or trying anything new.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learned on failure?

J: Everyone fails, whether they choose to share it or not. Everyone. No exceptions. It’s just a natural part of life. All great successes are built on a mountain of failures, so learning to embrace failure is the quickest way to rack up more successes.

Have you ever celebrated one of your failures? What happened and why was that failure a good thing?

J: Very publicly, actually. In 2013, we fulfilled a longtime goal and moved from our home state of Ohio to a beautiful apartment in NYC. It took us years to build up the courage to make the move, and once we finally did, we were so happy. But a few months into the experience, we realized that we were in over our heads. Our business, which was still running out of a warehouse back in Ohio, was running into problems without us there to oversee it. So, we made the difficult decision to bail out of New York after only eight months.

O: The worst part is that we were scheduled to speak at a conference in Cleveland two weeks before we moved back. It was our first big speaking gig as These Are Things. The timing was terrible. Neither of us felt comfortable getting on stage and talking about our “success” when we were in the middle of what felt like a crushing defeat.

J: So, we got on stage in front of a few hundred people and told our story, including all of the many ups and downs we’ve experienced as we built our careers as illustrators. You can watch the talk here. It was a terrifying experience, but today it remains one of the best things we’ve ever done as These Are Things. People really connected with our talk and we left the stage feeling like we’d been honest about our journey.

What do you think keeps people from talking openly about failure?

J: I think it comes down to a fear of being judged. There’s a lot of pressure to make it seem like everything is 100 percent perfect all the time. Especially with social media – who isn’t intimidated by a perfectly curated Instagram feed? When all we see is perfection, it makes us feel like we’re the only ones experiencing failure, which isn’t true at all. If you can change your perspective and view failure as a sign of growth and progress, it becomes much easier to speak freely about your own experiences in a real, authentic way.

What advice on failure would you give other artists & changemakers?

O: Failure is not a permanent place. It’s never as absolute or final as it may seem. While a failure may feel disastrous in the moment, in reality, there aren’t many failures that you can’t walk away from. You learn something and you move on, stronger and smarter than ever.

Thanks Jen and Omar for sharing your story! Get more advice from Jen Adrion and Omar Noory in their new e­book, “Designed To Sell: The Unconventional Guide to Creative Freedom,” which provides a proven step-by-step plan for building your own successful creative business. And be sure to follow These Are Things on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.