The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 38: Embracing Failure
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Failure has gotten a bad rap.
We've been taught to avoid it, fear it, and attach shame to it—but what if everything we believe about failure is completely backward?
There are only two genuine ways to fail: never trying and giving up entirely.
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All right, here we go. Howdy, I am James Victoria, and this is the Right Questions. Possibly the world's most powerful podcast, and today's episode is about one of my favorite subjects. The other one Besides love it's about failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure. You know failure Like doom, Like poverty and banishment. You know haters like I suck, I stink, I can't do this, I'm poopy pants, I wet the bed, I peed the pool, I stunk up the room, I made a mess, I made mistakes, I lost money, I lost faith, I lost friends. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I'm gonna eat worms. That kind of failure. Why do I bring this up? You know, because I love failure. I love failure. I don't love failing, nobody loves failing, but I bring it up because I received a wonderful and, quite frankly, right question. It's a right question because it is a universal question, one that we all have, and the question goes a little bit like this Hi, james, I read your latest post on Instagram about failure. Thank you for your good thoughts and inspiration.
Speaker 1:In the midst of failure, it tends to feel crappy, and a beautiful but true saying can't always soothe the weeping soul. God, you guys are so beautiful, you guys are such good writers. God, you guys are so beautiful, you guys are such good writers. So, anyway, the question goes on Life as an accumulation of better and better failures sounds a bit depressing to me, because my inner little creative child is screaming loudly I want success, not failure. Gimme, gimme, gimme. The question how much failure do I have to endure and how can I better recognize failure in my time? So excellent, excellent question, well put, beautifully written. All that rot, okay, failure.
Speaker 1:As I've said this before and will probably say again, y'all are just thinking about it wrong. You're thinking about failure and you're thinking about doom. You're thinking about failure like some downward spiral that leads to your family leaving you in poverty and dying in a trailer eating cat food on crackers. That kind of failure. Okay, there are only two ways to fail. Did you know this? There are only two ways to fail. I mean, besides, like you know, I don't know, a car accident killing you because you did something. You know you looked right instead of left, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But creatively in our lives, there are only two ways to fail. One don't try, just don't try, and you'll never fail. Or two, stop. If you stop, stop doing, stop trying, you'll never fail. But both of those are failures. Not trying is failing and stopping is failing. Never trying, never taking the chance at greatness or even goodness, or even freaking a mark on the page is failure. And to stop because you goofed or fudged or it's not working the way you expected, that's failure Because you have not learned from these experiences.
Speaker 1:Like I wrote in my marvelous and beautiful best-selling book, fec Perfection. It says in there in them pages. It says you have no friends, you have no enemies, you only have teachers. Failure is a teacher. Okay, think about it like this. Think about the ultimate failure, the ultimate failure.
Speaker 1:What would be the ultimate failure in your life? I think it's when something happens to one of those big things in your life, right? For example, a relationship like divorce, a relationship falling apart. That is failure, right? Or seems like failure. Or it could be a marker that we would write down as failure. But there is nothing better than divorce to make you feel like a failure, right? It's those feelings that we attach to things that make them so hard. It doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to listen to our feelings. We can feel them for a short time but know that our feelings are not truth.
Speaker 1:I will tell you from experience if you learn from divorce, then it's not failure. Through divorce, I hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, learn to be a better partner. I learn to be more Of who I am and less of what someone else wants me to be or what I think someone else wants of me. I stop catering. I'm not a failure because I'm divorced. People still like me. I'm still a gifted creator and a friend. I have not failed.
Speaker 1:Failure is just a change of direction. It's another route, especially when it's failure like that that you can't control. You can't go back. There's no going back. Hell no. As far as divorce, hell no. Why do we attach these feelings to it? Why do we attach so much fucking emotion to it, or anything for that matter? Well, listen, I did a little research about that and there are so many reasons, actually too many reasons, why we attach emotion to failure that I can't even include them fully in this podcast. But here's a quickie. Here's a quick look. Okay, one is like cultural norms Right, it's become. Cultural norms means cultural habits, it's become a cultural norm, a normal way to see failure as accepted by culture. Right Doesn't mean it's true, just means it's a big cultural habit.
Speaker 1:Media representation and the educational system right, the way it's presented to us. When we're kids, even you know, in school we're presented with like you're supposed to do well on all the tests, you're supposed to get good grades. What the fuck is that Right? I don't really understand that, why that's so important, Because it's not really testing you for who you are. It's testing you for what they want you to learn. You're supposed to get A's, not F's, and that failure is embarrassing. So that's odd the way it's presented to us. Again, cultural norms, or through the media, or through the educational system. There's also fear of judgment, right, there's our self-esteem and there's our perfectionism. Oh my God. As I said again in Infect Perfection, I said something to the effect of set unrealistic goals for yourself and then, when you don't achieve them, beat yourself up for not attaining it. That's what perfectionism is, you know.
Speaker 1:Another idea is social comparison, again, how we stack up against others. That brings feelings of inadequacy when we compare ourselves to other people. Somehow, instagram is just showing me millionaires right now. How do you think that makes me feel? A bunch of guys who I got zero fucking respect for. I think they are hacks, untalented motherfuckers, but they got a lot of money. And I think the last idea which is interesting is that it's a survival instinct. It's a survival instinct, you know, like when we were cavemen if you failed, you failed big. You generally failed pretty big right. So we try to avoid it as much as possible. But today, since it's 2025 or 2026, I don't even know what year it is we should celebrate. We should do the fucking exact opposite, because it's not a survival instinct. Now we should celebrate our failures. We should publish our failures.
Speaker 1:I have a dear friend. His name is Brad Montague. If you haven't heard of him or aren't following him, take a look. He's a really interesting guy. He does a fail-abration. He celebrates. His new thing is celebrating failures and making them public, which is a wonderful idea. He even has a new book for kids about failing. What a lovely idea about failing. What a lovely idea.
Speaker 1:I personally, I am happy to share my failures. You know. Talk about money, talk about creative success or you know any other sore points, pain points, as we call them, right. I'm happy to talk about those and my own experiences with them. I am happy that you can learn from me and learn from my failures. I have always tried to make myself a very creative lab rat for my audience. You know, learn from my mistakes. That's important.
Speaker 1:Right now you're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victoria could be my mentor, my guru Hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to yourworkisagiftcom. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to yourworkisagiftcom. Let's talk. Let's talk. But here's an idea Failure is just a deficit of perspective.
Speaker 1:It is an unhealthy lack of perspective Not being able to see past it, Having no peripheral vision when it comes to failure. Right, failure is just not being able to see something through to completion. Failure isn't the end point, it's only a part. How about that? Do you ever think about that like that? No, you didn't. Why do you keep hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself. Right, failure means you're only halfway through, or a third of the way through, or four-fifths or twelve-sixteens, I don't know. Or a third of the way through, or four-fifths or twelve-sixteens, I don't know. Failure is just a marker. It's not the end. Do you see the perspective there? Check out, dude. Check out the size of the perspective on that dude. That dude's got some big perspective right there.
Speaker 1:Right, if I stopped every time I failed, I'd be living in my mom's house with no work to show for myself, right? No forward movement, because I'd stop or I'd stop trying. Failure is an opportunity to get smarter each time. Listen, there are people out there none of us because we're geniuses. We are geniuses full of grit and fortitude and persistence and consistency. But there are others, not in the club, who see failure as failure and therefore they become failure. They let that perspective, or lack of perspective, pee in their pool, right? Failure to them becomes an impenetrable wall instead of a step or a threshold or a ladder, Because you learn more from failure than you do from success. You learn from the struggle.
Speaker 1:Success itself is very misleading. It shows you what works one time and it doesn't necessarily work twice or in the long run, and it only leads you to a point and eventually you're going to get bored of that point. You want to go forward, right? So you're going to have to risk failure again. Failure has to come in and recalibrate you. And what it does? Does it set your standards lower? Fuck no, it sets your standards higher. That's how it works.
Speaker 1:Think of a kid, think of the children how it works. Think of a kid, think of the children. Think of the children. Think of kids and how they learn. And what an important part failure is. How important is it that they fall? How important is it that they fall or break things right, or spilling and stumbling? And it's an important part for them is the not giving up, that they move on. How important is it for them to learn perseverance and testing? It tests our boundaries a parent's boundaries, of course, but testing boundaries and learning grit, you know.
Speaker 1:So how did we learn this idea of failure? Possibly when we were kids, you know. That's when it came in deep. That's when our parents possibly crushed us, or we saw their emotion for us spilling milk or worse. We were shielded from even the opportunity. Possibly crushed us, or we saw their emotion for us spilling milk, or worse, we were shielded from even the opportunity to spill milk because we got fucking sippy cups, fucking A. Why don't we just do everything for our fucking kids? You know, because we coddle them and we keep them clean. Jesus Christ, let them fucking fail. Or we had the equivalent in school or at work. You know the stakes were too high to leave room for mistakes. You know this thing better go, this thing better work. We're putting money on it so we become fear-averse instead of bold and beautiful risk-takers. You know, back in the day, charles and Ray Eames. You know the Eameses were famous for creating a studio that was like a playground, where their designers felt comfortable making mistakes. That's where they got the important work. Who does that shit anymore? Nobody, listen.
Speaker 1:In my own career I remember almost the day. I remember the day it happened. That fucking little cliche of a light bulb went off in my head. It was early in my career. I was like in my middle, late 20s, probably right, and hey, by the way, that's the time when you should fail and take all these risks. That's what makes it hard for us now as adults, when you're young and broke and stupid. That's when you take chances. It becomes difficult later on, when we're adults. Right, we've got people who rely on us, we've got rent or mortgage or whatever. But it's equally important. It's equally important to fail, but I digress as I do. I remember the day and I was working for publishers. That's what I did.
Speaker 1:I was a freelance book jacket designer and I had a shit ton of work working for all the big publishers in New York, but I didn't have my own voice, or at least yet I did own my own voice. I knew who I was, but I wasn't using it in my work. I was making book jackets that looked like book jackets. I was making the obvious, more obvious-er, right Until one day I just started to use my own sense of humor, my own sense of color, my own sense of design and proportion and shape and the macabre and the silly and the gross and the dirty, and I put it in my work and all of a sudden my work was getting turned down all over the place. Nobody was interested in my proportion and shape and design and macabre and the silly and the gross and the dirty. I was living on kill fees, literally.
Speaker 1:I had one publisher, my main pimp at the time. This guy gave me my very first job and like, like, like, gave me just a shit ton of work. But I had him tell me during this period of my life, my, my, my adventurous summer, let's say, because it was. He said James, or he spoke like this James, if you bring me something that I can't publish, I will never work with you again. And guess what happened? I never worked with him again. Fuck, that shit is basically what I would say I should have at that moment. I should have, at that moment, given him a lesson and said hey, joseph, goodbye, you are obviously not my client. So I had to step out and find my clients, literally find the bold ones, find the brave ones, the risk takers, and this is what it took. I had to risk failure, risk living on kill fees, you know, risk living on one third of what I should have gotten in order to find success. I had to risk failure in order to find fucking greatness.
Speaker 1:So how do we learn to prescribe emotion to it? Maybe that's the thing we prescribe emotion to it. We attach emotion to it, right? I thought of something the other day. I was writing, and I was writing this interesting thing and I wrote these two lines that said I'm not stuck, I'm being emotional, meaning we get stuck. Right, we get stuck, but we're not really stuck. We just started. We just start being emotional about it.
Speaker 1:It's like in the movie A League of their Own about the Women's Baseball League. Right, it's Tom Hanks is the coach. And when the character played by Bitsy Schramm Bitsy later played Tony Shalhoub's partner in the TV show Monk, there's a pop culture reference for you. But Tom Hanks is dressing her down like yelling at her on the field right and she starts crying. Tom's like are you crying? She says no. He says there's no crying in baseball. He just lays out this truth there's no emotion in baseball. Play the fucking game. Play the game. Play the game. Emotion in baseball. Play the fucking game. Play the game. Play the game. Make decisions, play the game. He also famously said in that movie when the game becomes too hard, one of the players says it's just gotten too hard. He says it's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard makes it great.
Speaker 1:Dearest listeners, failure is not easy. I'm talking to you guys. Failure is not easy. Take the emotion out of it. Failure, the feelings around failure, are useless emotions.
Speaker 1:To see failure as something to avoid or something that makes you shirk from your best work or doesn't let you take chances, or something that makes you not share your work fully or fully express yourself, is a lack of perspective. A lack of perspective, a paucity of perspective, to not do something because it may not work is the worst reason in the world, and that means you're definitely, you're definitely going to fail. With whatever you try, you're definitely going to fail, so you might as well try. You know? Listen, the New York Yankees, man United, barcelona, real Madrid, juventus right, these are arguably the most winningest teams or clubs in sports history, but did they win every single game? Teams or clubs in sports history, but did they win every single game? No, it don't work like that. Right, you're going to fail Occasionally.
Speaker 1:And listen to this what's an origin story without failure? Who the hell is Rocky Balboa without Apollo Creed? Or Ivan Drago, or even Hulk Hogan and Mr T? Right, success without struggle is bullshit. That's what it is. Success without struggle is bullshit. I gotta make a t-shirt with that.
Speaker 1:Failure is a shepherd and a teacher is just one that you don't like, but it serves a purpose and actually leads you to success if you allow it time. It all depends on how high your entry fee is, right, if you keep playing at a low bar with low expectations and low intentions, never taking any chances or risks and never feeling the emotional bullshit of success. Good for you. But please understand that you will constantly be living in failure and not know it. Most people, I dare say, are so comfortable that fucking word comfort God that they're living in failure and don't know it, because all they wanted was comfort and security. And if you're stuck, there's that word. If you're stuck at a job you hate or a loveless marriage or a dead-end career, this means you Sorry, not sorry, but there's a level of living in failure that we sometimes accept so we can go to the bar and complain to our friends.
Speaker 1:If you're creatively frustrated, that means you're not playing the game that you're capable of playing, you're not playing at the volume that you want. That means you fail. So what is worse? Risking failure true and occasional failure, or living in it constantly? Right, that's the failure of mediocrity. Right, that's the failure of mediocrity. Right, staying in a crappy job, you know Failure by way of boredom, taking chances and risking failure means we're living our lives at our fullest, the way it was meant to be. I don't mean take risks every single moment. You just end up stupid that way or getting hurt a lot. But creatively, creatively, I, james Victoria, I creatively have to constantly skate to the edge of failure. I do. I do because that's me at my best and I'm constantly surprised when my projects succeed. It's like, oh my god, that thing worked, amazing, amazing. I'm surprised when you like something I've written or like a podcast episode. I totally expect booing from the cheap seats, totally expect that, or at least more of it than I do here, because I hear it occasionally. So here I'm going to repeat the letter that was written, the question that was written to us with my edits Hi James, thank you for good thoughts and inspiration.
Speaker 1:In the midst of failure, it feels it tends to feel crappy and a beautiful but true saying that can't always soothe the weeping soul. Okay, forget the feelies and your weepy soul, accept failure in and offer it some tea. Next line says Life as an accumulation of better and better failures. Sounds a bit depressing to me. Think of it like this Again perspective. Think of it like this Sweeter and sweeter pies. Every time, sweeter and sweeter pies. You just keep trying. Let's pretend you're baking. Every time it gets better and better.
Speaker 1:Next part of the question says because my inner little creature, little creature, hilarious, that's how I read it Inner little creative child is screaming loudly. I want success and not failure. Success and failure are the same thing. It's like salt and pepper. They go together. They make life better. They make life better.
Speaker 1:And part of the question says how much failure do I have to endure? My answer is all of it. All of it and ask for seconds, because God and the universe doesn't give you any challenge that you can't fucking handle. And finally they write in how can I better recognize my failure in time? My answer is with perspective. So take a chance and fail and join me. I'm the biggest failure you will ever meet, because I'm not shooting for mediocrity, I'm shooting for the fucking stars, because that's where I want to live and that's where you should live, in the rarefied air of failure. And, as my pal Brad says, I hope you fail better.
Speaker 1:I'm James Victoria. I love you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this. You. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this podcast. Thank you for supporting this project. I've got so many questions about this podcast. I'm trying to figure out how to make it better for you guys all the time. You got suggestions right in. You got questions right in. I appreciate you being here. You guys mean the world to me and I will jaw at you another time Adios.