The Climb

Run Your Own Race

/ nicholasjinfante / 1 Comment

Another year has passed since I’ve sat down to write an update here. It’s been a reminder that if you aren’t intentional about making things happen, they won’t. The older I get, the more I recognize time is a rushing river that constantly flows past us. Since it’s also our most precious commodity, I’m going to try to hold myself more accountable to making time for the things I value and that are truly important to me. My dream is to eventually write full-time, so doing more of this is at the top of that list.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to share an experience I had about a year ago in Colorado. In late August of 2025, my wife and I traveled out west for my buddy’s wedding. Since Colorado is one of my favorite places on Earth and my wife had never been, I decided to turn the trip into a two and a half week adventure of traversing the state and hitting up some of the best spots it has to offer.

We spent a few days in Denver and then hopped in the rental car to spend a long weekend in Boulder where I had spent one of the most formative years of my life washing dishes and sleeping on a free couch from Craigslist (that people had definitely vomited on). After that, we headed south to Manitou Springs for some real outdoorsy shit and finally all the way to Buena Vista to a remote Air BnB with a spectacular view of the mountains and lots of peace and quiet. 

After living in Colorado for two years from 2014 to 2016 at a time when I was often fighting for my life (financially speaking), it was awesome to go back and get to experience it the way I had always dreamed of. It’s hard to put it into words, but there is something so satisfying when you wake up and realize you’re living a life your former self could have only imagined. Starting the day with a hot cup of coffee and stepping outside to an unobstructed view of the Collegiate Peaks was a top tier moment for me. Getting to fire up my laptop and work in that environment gave me a large sense of pride about my journey up until this point. It was a far cry from the late night walks home in the snow and ice in Boulder after washing dishes for $10.50/hr.


But the real point of this post is not about sharing a glorious vacation. It’s about unpacking another piece of the mental puzzle that I think has made these moments possible for me. A few years ago, I was introduced to the idea of the “Misogi Challenge” by the entrepreneur Jesse Itzler. Essentially, it’s a modern adaptation of an ancient Japanese ritual that is designed to push you past your limiting beliefs and enrich your personal development. In 2024, I did my first Misogi Challenge by hiking 10 miles through the Samaria Gorge on the island of Crete in Greece. It was certainly not an easy undertaking for me, but I found the experience to be overwhelmingly positive and I am so happy I did it.

Last year, while in Colorado, I did my second Misogi Challenge by hiking the Manitou Incline. This hike is 2,768 “steps” made of old railroad ties that gain 2,000 feet of vertical elevation in a little under a mile. It is a very steep climb essentially straight up the side of a mountain. If none of that paints a vivid picture for you, then I’ll add this: there have been at least 5 reported deaths on the trail since it was opened to the public and numerous other people have suffered either serious injuries (like broken legs/ankles) or experienced severe health crises such as strokes that necessitated being airlifted off of it by a rescue team.

Something I have struggled with most of my life and continue to struggle with currently, is my level of physical fitness and maintaining a healthy body weight. It’s estimated that only 40% of those who attempt this climb make it to the top, so this was another serious challenge that gave me a lot of pause and felt intimidating to do (which makes it perfect for a Misogi). My number one rule is if you’re not sure you can do it – you should definitely try to do it. The Manitou Incline fit the bill for me.

(Photo below for context). 


We were in Manitou Springs for 4 days to see some old friends of mine, enjoy the quaint little mountain town, do some sightseeing at Garden of the Gods, and of course, bust our ass on this hike. The day I had initially planned to do the hike, I woke up feeling not quite rested and something internally told me “today is not the day” and so I (wisely) swapped the itinerary to go sightseeing that day and put the hike on the docket for the following morning.

We woke up early to beat the heat so we wouldn’t get stranded halfway up the “staircase” in direct midday sunlight (which ended up happening anyway). After eating a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we packed our hiking gear, some quick release energy snacks, and LOTS of water/sports drinks. Once the shuttle dropped us off at the base of the trail, we got out and walked with the rest of the brave crowd ready to test themselves.

The start of the hike is pretty easy and begins with a gradual curvature up the slope of the mountain. After about 15 or so minutes into it though, the real ascent begins. If you’ve ever climbed a really long steep staircase or done a grueling workout on the stairmaster, you know it’s no joke. Combine that with the added difficulty of exerting yourself in the Colorado altitude, and you’re in for a real treat. My heartrate started climbing faster than the elevation and I quickly realized that if I was going to get all 300+ pounds of me to the top of this mountain, I was going to have to pace myself and be strategic about it.

My wife is a former professional athlete, so she was handling the challenge of the hike much better than I was. After three or four times of stopping because of me, I encouraged her to take some extra water with her and go at her own pace and wait for me at the top. By the time I got 70% of the way up, the gradient had reached a similar percentage. I began stopping every 100 steps to catch my breath. Then every 50. Then every 25. I was hurting bad. 

There’s a “bail out” point at the 75% mark on the hike, which is typically where the lion’s share of the 60% of hikers who don’t make it stop. The first time I attempted this hike when I was 22, that is exactly what I did. My heart wasn’t in it at the time and I didn’t see the value in pushing myself the way I do now. I had equally bad habits of not giving a fuck and of not following through even when I did. I saw the off-ramp and I took it.

What was interesting this time around was how closely I felt this hike was a metaphor for life and business. Everyone who showed up that day to take on this challenge was of varying ages, fitness levels, body types, races, genders, nationalities, etc. What we all had in common was a shared goal of reaching the top. We all started the hike on step one. But only a certain percentage of us were going to make it to the top, and unlike what most people may think, it wasn’t the “most in shape” or fittest people that determined who made it.

What I observed was that the people who reached the top were actually the ones who possessed the most grit, determination, and willpower. I saw young healthy people turn back or hit the bail out point when they realized it was harder than they thought or that they didn’t really want it bad enough (like me ten years prior). I saw people who must have been in their mid sixties literally running up the mountain past everyone. Some people went up and down three times while I was contemplating sending up a smoke signal for a medivac helicopter at the halfway point. 

In the midst of this, I had an enlightening realization. There may be people twice my age who can crush this hike faster and more elegantly than myself, but there’s also people who “should” be a lot better equipped for this than me who gave up already. As I was approaching the bailout point – hot, sweaty, tired, and sore – I committed to finishing what I started. I wasn’t leaving until the job was done, no matter what. I told myself, “I am going to make it to the top of this mountain or I am going to die on it.” And that was that.

I thought about all of the dreams and goals I’ve set for myself and how this steep climb was so similar. Instead of walking a mile straight up in the hot sun, I was walking a metaphorical thousand mile journey with varying degrees of difficulty throughout. My life and what I want it to be may never even have a “summit” or finish line to reach, but the same principle applies. It doesn’t matter what advantages other people have or if there’s someone doing what you dream of doing better than you right now. What matters is if you’re going to commit to the goal and refuse to stop short of it. I realized that I was running my own race and the only person I was actually competing against was myself and the part of me that wants to quit. I realized that the only thing that matters is whether I do what I set out to do or not.

From that point forward, it wasn’t just a hike I was completing anymore. Mentally, it felt like everything I wanted in my life was hanging in the balance. If I couldn’t handle this hike, how could I handle any of the other big dreams I have? They are certainly harder and more audacious than this. It was time to put up or shut up. So I took another sip of water, another deep breath, and I stood up and started climbing again. I passed the bail out point and laser focused on finishing what I had set out to do. I was determined to prove to myself that this was indeed a new and improved version of me. I wanted to prove to myself that my desire to succeed was stronger than how I felt. 

There is a point on this hike that becomes so steep (and it occurs after you are well spent on your energy levels), that it necessitated me basically crawling on all fours. It was probably the last 500-600 steps that proved the hardest physically and mentally. As I was clawing my way up each railroad tie, telling myself each one amounted to meaningful progress (and that this trail from hell is not actually never-ending), I passed an older woman in a sun hat with a bright blue backpack and a hiking stick sitting on the edge of the trail taking in the view. She was probably in her late 50’s or early 60’s and certainly did not look like someone who was physically prepared for this type of strenuous activity.

There was a bit of shade near her and I felt like I was about to stroke out again, so I decided to make a pitstop in the same place. After sucking wind for a few minutes, I finally made some small talk and asked her how she was enjoying the hike. She smiled in a sort of whimsical way at first and took a moment to answer me. “Everything hurts,” she said plainly. “I’ve been climbing for over three hours already,” she added. (For context, it takes an average hiker about 1 to 2 hours to finish the Manitou Incline). I eventually summited about 2 hours and 10 minutes after starting. My wife took probably half that time. To be on the trail for over 3 hours and still have 20% of it left was definitely a slow go at it. I looked at her, slightly concerned, and asked if she had enough water and felt good to continue.

“Oh yes,” she replied. “I wouldn’t wait for me at the top as I’ll likely be taking quite a while to finish, but I’m not stopping until I’ve completed it. I’ll sleep out here if I have to,” she added matter-of-factly. I smiled and nodded my head at her while desperately chugging some powerade hoping to summon the energy necessary for the next 100 steps ahead of me. Before I left, I turned to her and said, “that’s the spirit. It’s not about how fast you get there, it’s just about getting there.” She nodded back with a grin and wished me good luck on the rest of my trek.

It wasn’t easy, but I eventually made it to the top of the mountain. There were groups of people waiting up there to give a big round of applause as each hiker reached the promised land. My beautiful wife was waiting with a big smile, ready to embrace me and talk shit about our finishing times. I could tell she had used her time waiting to think of ways to tease me about it. “I was starting to get worried… and hungry,” she said with a grin on her face. I might not have been the fastest, but it was still a hell of a test of my endurance and my willpower.

(Here’s the picture of us at the top)


After working our way down the mountain, which is another 3 mile winding trail down the other side of the stairs, and recuperating for a day (or two), I reflected on the experience. I realized that I only made it to the top of the mountain because I gave myself no other option. If I had listened to my body or my mind about how I was feeling through the toughest stretches, I would have quit on myself again. It would have been easy to rationalize or justify it or tell myself it wasn’t worth it or that it’s really not that important. But I didn’t let that happen. I told myself that nothing I wanted to accomplish in life would come true if I didn’t make it to the top of this mountain. The choice I gave myself was very simple: get there or die trying (50 cent would be proud).

It wasn’t until later that I realized I’ve been applying the same mindset to my life without thinking about it. After all, life and entrepreneurship can feel eerily similar to walking up a neverending staircase in the hot sun. Most of the time you can’t see the end of the trail and you’re so exhausted you want to fall flat on your face and say fuck it. But the key is remembering it’s just you versus you. The only thing that matters is getting to the top, not getting there first or before anybody else. If you can rid yourself of caring about the opinions of other people and stop comparing yourself to everyone around you (most of whom haven’t even started doing anything yet, let alone achieved anything), you can go all the way. But you have to commit to the goal and give it everything you’ve got. No Plan B.

I want you to think honestly about what would give you the motivation needed to endure the suffering necessary to reach the top of your personalized mountain (your dream life). What is worth the pain to you? What are you willing to crawl on your hands and knees for? What ultimate goal is worth dedicating your life to? That’s the real key to unlocking a whole new level of badassery within yourself. You need to know not just what to do, but why you’re doing it. Because at the end of the day, it’s only when shit gets hard that you find out how much you really care about your goals. 

And remember the pace you choose is equally important. If you need to achieve your dream life in 24 months instead of 24 years, you’re probably going to collapse on that mountain well before you even whiff the top step. If I needed to climb the Manitou Incline in 20 minutes instead of 2+ hours, I wouldn’t be here to write about it. Sometimes you need to sit in the shade, rehydrate, and allow yourself to take in the view so that you can replenish your strength and energy to keep going. Last year and quarter one of 2026 gave me a royal beatdown and forced me to confront the fact that I was pushing myself too hard for too long and not taking care of myself properly. Something I’ve been learning the last few months is how to make space for productive rest so I can finish the journey ahead of me. 

I tend to feel guilty if I’m not constantly working (I know, I know). I’ve made a lot of strides in my life over the last 8 years and made tons of progress, but I still have a long way to go to get to where I ultimately want to be. And what has shifted in my perspective lately was the same realization I had on the Manitou Incline: if I’m serious about reaching the top, I need to pace myself and do it strategically or I am going to crash and burn at the halfway point. I’ve been all-in, pedal to the metal, and firing on all cylinders constantly for years (which is admirable and was necessary for awhile). But when my health started to take a hit, I had to come to terms with the fact that even if I could brute force my way to the top like that… if I wasn’t healthy enough to enjoy it when I got there, what was the point?

I’ve been giving myself permission to take my foot off the gas a bit lately and focus on other areas of my life like health and relationships more. I still work hard and my goals haven’t changed, but I’m allowing for a season of sitting in the shade and taking in the view so that I can continue the climb in a way that is sustainable. I encourage you to think the same way about whatever mountain you’re attempting to climb yourself. 

There is always going to be some 18 year old crypto billionaire or that person that seems to have it all figured out and is able to do it in a seemingly effortless way. The people who lap you three times while you’re checking your pulse halfway up. Fuck those people. They don’t matter. You need to get your mind dialed in on the task at hand and finish what you started. If you know you can push, then push. If you need to take a break, rest. Don’t overcomplicate things. Just don’t take it too easy when you know you have more to give. 

Much like being the fittest person didn’t necessarily determine who made it to the top of the Manitou Incline, being the smartest, most confident, or naturally best looking person doesn’t guarantee you anything in the arena of life. I know tons of people smarter than me that cannot get out of their own way and overthink themselves into inaction. Better looking people may be treated better as a whole, but plenty of them lack healthy relationships and oftentimes end up having worse lives because of the drama it invites. Most goals that are truly beneficial for you require a lot of hard work to achieve, regardless of what natural talents or advantages you happen to be born with.

My point is this: you’re not in a competition with the rest of the world. Being successful isn’t zero-sum. There’s no one else like you, and that’s your advantage. Make sure your dream life is as unique to you as your own DNA, and you will give yourself a higher likelihood of achieving it. It should be tailormade for you and only you.

Once you define that dream and start climbing towards it, what matters is that you see it through. How fast you make it there or how effortless you make it look is irrelevant. No one is clocking you. The scoreboard is only in your head. Other people are going to laugh at you no matter what you do. So run your own race and focus on what you need to do to make your dreams become reality. The life you want is out there waiting for you. No one can walk the path for you and no one is going to feel sorry for you if you don’t get there. Keep climbing.

The Freedom in Failure

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word, “failure”? If you’re like most people, it’s probably other words that carry extremely negative connotations. Defeat, disappointment, losing – things that make us feel inadequate or deficient in the eyes of the world and as a result, our own eyes. But what if you could train your brain to feel indifferent towards failure? To recognize it for what it truly is – something that is neither good nor bad by itself. Experiencing failure is necessary for us to gather data so that the next time we attempt something, we do it with a better, more informed approach. We try again and do it slightly better, but if our goals are worthwhile ones – then we’ll most likely fail again. You repeat that process over and over again knowing that each time you analyze what went wrong or what could have been done better, you get to regroup and come at it again with a different and improved strategy. When you take the time to examine yourself, your shortcomings, and your process – it enables you to seek new opportunities with confidence that the next try will be a success because of what your prior failures have taught you. In that way, the act of failing has an important purpose. Each failure, viewed through the proper lens, contains a lesson that gives you another piece of the puzzle you need to assemble your ideal life. This hopefully leads you to the goals you envisioned, but if not, it is guaranteed to lead you to other alternatives that will still leave you better off than when you began your journey towards achievement. Failure is an inextricable component of progress – and continuous progress is the whole game. Therefore, fearing failure is not only wholly irrational, but it is also holding you back from moving your life in the right direction.

I happen to think a lot of people end up settling into a level of comfort with their lives and never trying to achieve what they really want because of their fear of failure. People love to mask that fear with the guise of “practicality” or “realistic expectations.” But if we really dig a little bit below the surface, most people don’t push themselves towards their dreams because there’s always uncertainty, and uncertainty leads to doubt. They doubt their ability to succeed in the undertaking and the idea of putting 110% of their effort into something and having it not work out scares the shit out of them. As a result, most people end up living a life that requires 50% of their best effort but that offers them what they consider a safe place to be. Nothing glamorous, but enough – and that’s fine. The only time I think it’s not fine is if you’re suffering through the monotony of life not enjoying what you do every day. If your intuition is really sending you constant signals that you’re not where you’re meant to be – or that life could be so much better and that there is so much more out there waiting for you – then it’s a problem to settle for less than pursuing that possibility. You’re going to die one day and win or lose, succeed or fail… you’ll be happy later on that you had the courage and audacity to try. Unfortunately, people often sully their childhood dreams for a paycheck. As life goes on, responsibilities pile up and it becomes a necessity to establish financial security for themselves and their families. That’s why it’s particularly important for younger people to recognize how important it is to try new things and allow themselves to fail as much as possible without giving a fuck. The beauty here is that you are capable of redefining failure for yourself the same way you redefine success. Find the courage to tell society to take its idea of what your life should look like and shove it – and never let your decisions or actions be dictated by other people’s opinions of you.

When I think back to my younger self, I have a lot of regrets, but my biggest one is confidently that I didn’t let myself fail enough. I was always very self-conscious – I cared way too much about how I looked and what people would think of me. It stopped me from giving new things an earnest chance and who knows what kind of memorable life experiences I missed out on because of that. I’m fortunate to have fallen into a situation early in my life that put me in the driver’s seat of my destiny. I’m also fortunate that at 25 years old I was smart enough to see it that way and really sink my teeth into it. But when I go over what it took to get to this point in my life, I realize that it was a never-ending series of failures that paved the way to this moment. No matter how bruised my ego was or how low I felt about all my failed attempts to start making a life for myself or trying to be successful out in the world, I eventually healed enough to gain the courage to go and do it again. If you’re reading this blog right now, this is a perfect example of me going for it without being concerned with the outcome. Your relationship with, and perspective of, failure, will permeate every aspect of your life. If it’s a relationship and perspective characterized by fear, you won’t be able to make a move on anything you want to do. You will remain frozen in a state of inaction. If it’s one of indifference or the acceptance of failure as a vital part of success, you will free yourself up to take your shots in life – and some of them will eventually hit the mark. I want to walk you through how failing repeatedly created the path forward for me in my own life.

A little over seven years ago I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with two of my friends in Boulder, Colorado. I worked as a dishwasher and a fry cook for $10.50 an hour and slept on a couch that we got for free on Craigslist that multiple people had vomited on during house parties. The neighborhood squirrels found a way in and out of the apartment so I would frequently be woken up by the sound of a frantically panting tree mouse scurrying around the living room. One of my roommates worked as a line cook at the same restaurant I did and lived in a crawl space under the stairs like Harry Potter. It was a mess. After my stint in the restaurant biz, I went back to my roots in manual labor as a landscaper and mover. As I write this, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that in order to live I no longer have to push wheelbarrows full of rocks up steep inclines in sweltering heat or carry refrigerators down six flights of narrow stairs. I’m going to resolve not to complain about anything work-related from this point forward. Anyway, the whole reason I lived like this for a year was because I took a chance and dropped out of college to move to Colorado where I was absolutely certain my future was going to unfold as a successful marijuana grower and that I would become known as the “King of Cannabis” – it’s okay, you can laugh. It was goofy.

When I turned 21, I immediately got my paperwork done to work in the recreational cannabis industry. I was over the moon excited, beaming with optimism, and super fucking naïve about what was waiting for me. In no way is my personal experience with the industry indicative of all experiences (or even most) working in it or reflective of the industry as a whole. I still fully support the industry and have met wonderful people through pursuing that career path – but there’s a lot of bullshit too. With no prior experience, I ended up encountering the same issues I had in any other line of work I applied for as a college drop-out with no real discernible skills to speak of. I was offered $10-$15 an hour to sit in a chair for 8 to 10 hours a day and trim weed. So, it ended up sucking just as bad – and quite honestly even worse – than the other jobs I had been working. The only difference was that I got to hold, and smell weed all day… and I cannot tell you how quickly the novelty of that wore off. I wanted a shot to prove myself and after gritting my teeth through three months of working menial jobs for numerous dispensaries – no one seemed interested in giving me one. In true 2015 Nicholas fashion, my impatience led me to going a more unconventional route.

I ended up working for a large grow operation in the southern part of Colorado. I got hands-on experience with growing the plants and was able to learn first-hand the entire process that goes into producing cannabis for wholesale. There was only one catch… it wasn’t exactly legal. It started off great and I was trying to ingratiate myself with the crew and do my part to bring value to the operation as much as possible. I even got the chance to be fully responsible for 16 plants of my own from start to finish in the outdoor season to see what I could do. The problem was that I was young and stupid and broke. Growing cannabis properly costs a considerable amount of money, and I didn’t have enough to cover the resources I needed (soil, pots, nutrients, materials for a greenhouse, etc.) for the growing season. I ended up making a deal that was terrible for me just so I could get a solo grow under my belt and after all the sweat and months of demanding work I put into my plants, when I had to give up what I owed – I realized I had been taken advantage of. I got screwed. It wasn’t nefariously done per se, but they used my lack of experience and knowledge against me, and I paid the price for it. It really fractured my trust with the group of people I was involved with, and I wasn’t emotionally capable of looking at it the way I do now. At the time, I was pissed off and was confronted with making $10 an hour again and not being able to pay my bills or moving back to the East Coast to cool off and collect myself and try something new. I ended up choosing the latter. Now, after reflecting on the whole situation in hindsight, I realize that was my first crash course in the art of negotiation – and I failed badly at it. That has turned out to be one of the best lessons I have ever learned.

When I got back to New York I felt defeated. I was despondent to the point that I really thought my whole existence was defined by moving out to Colorado and having my dreams trounced and ending up back near my hometown in upstate New York looking for work. I felt like a complete and total failure – and I really believed life was never going to get better again. I split wood outside in the middle of winter and worked as a farm hand literally shoveling shit for a living. I was sleeping on a different couch, this one in my grandparent’s basement, and waking up at 5am every day to work tough jobs just so I could make enough to afford gas, cigarettes, and booze. I was physically exhausting myself and getting nowhere at the same time. When they say life is a series of ups and downs – I was halfway to China at this point.

The following spring, I had the opportunity to move to New York City. I really didn’t think of myself as a city person, and the proposition seemed daunting – but when I looked around me and observed my life in its present form – it made the decision pretty easy for me. What the hell did I have to lose? It turns out that that decision ended up being one of the best I ever made… and it still took about half a decade for the ROI from it to materialize. I absolutely loved NYC (particularly my neighborhood on the Upper West Side), I got to reconnect with several of my closest childhood friends who were also living there, and it ended up leading me to the job opportunity that has evolved into a total transformation of my professional and financial circumstances. But it was a grind to get there. When I first got to the city, I was still broke as shit. Being broke anywhere is tough – being broke in Manhattan is torture.

I went all over the city turning in resumés hoping to get a shot to bartend because I knew the pay was relatively good and I knew there were other perks to the lifestyle that I was still interested in at the time. I don’t drink anymore, but when I first got to NYC, I was like a kid in a candy shop… or an alcoholic in a sea of endless bars, clubs, and taverns. I offered to start as a barback with the possibility of working up, offered to take expensive classes I couldn’t really afford to get up to speed on how to make specialty drinks, and followed-up with every place I applied to – and I got a whopping zero calls back. As it turns out, people aren’t particularly interested in a 6’7” 250+ pound barback or bartender. As in most instances in my life when my back was against the wall and I really needed to find work, I relied on my size advantage to get employment. I applied as a bouncer at numerous bars and was hired quickly.

As you can probably imagine, bouncing in New York City gave me a lot of stories and a unique experience. I met tons of people I liked that I worked with or that were regulars at our establishments. I worked for a company that owned eight different bars around Manhattan, so I was shipped around different neighborhoods and really got all the bang for my buck out of the job. Truthfully, I’m glad I did it because it eventually led to me getting sober – even though it initially led me to being worse than I was originally (because free booze). But spending 50+ hours a week standing on your feet in bars and being the designated confronter of assholes really weighs on your spirit after a while. People threaten you, call you names, spit at you, and try to fight you. You have to escort people out who are vomiting all over the place. You have to deal with people selling drugs. You have to break into bathroom stalls while people are actively fucking. I had someone take a shit on the floor once. Trying to maintain a level of decency in New York City’s nightlife scene is like trying to be a sheriff in the wild west – you just end up settling for not having dead bodies everywhere. You couple all of this good stuff with the ever-present possibility that you might get shot, stabbed, or jumped by a group of people for the cost of a corner bodega sandwich with chips and a drink per hour and it starts making you think that you should close this chapter of your life sooner rather than later.

I’m still not ready to divulge the details of my current job for numerous reasons, but the gist of it is that I ended up buying into someone else’s vision for an intellectual product they had created. I believed that I was savvy enough in business and had the intuitive skills to leverage along with teaching myself the operational ins and outs of an online enterprise to help them really ramp up what they were doing. When I first came up with the idea to work together, they couldn’t even pay me $500 a week – so I started by helping to write copy for newsletters, website edits, and miscellaneous things for a few hundred dollars here and there on the side of my bouncing schedule. I would get home at 5am, wake up at noon, do some work, and then get ready to go back out on sheriff duty. Eventually, I leaned into my lesson from my failed negotiation in Colorado to help me present an offer that I felt was fair to both of us. It allowed me to put my fulltime focus and effort on this business venture while also working around their inability to guarantee me income. I put myself in a position where I was either going to deliver results that greatly benefited both of us, or I was going to fail and have to hit the job market again. I rolled the dice on myself once more despite the unfavorable outcomes of the past – I tried again without fearing the possibility of failure.

Needless to say, that decision did work out for me this time and continues to do so. But even that was a series of failed attempts before it really got going. My revenue target for the business the first month I started working full-time on it missed the mark by 80%. It was demoralizing and I questioned myself after bringing in way less than the minimum requirement I needed to support myself financially. But I felt conviction that I would get it right – so instead of dwelling on that failure I analyzed what went wrong, poured over information I found on Google, YouTube, and in books – and then I tried again. I committed to studying and applying simultaneously and sure enough, things started improving month over month, and year over year. To this day, I am always trying to teach myself something useful to do my job better. I try to learn something beneficial that can be used in my personal or professional life every single day. It sucks when an idea doesn’t work, but I no longer let it discourage me at all because I understand now that failure is another way of learning what I need to know to do things better the next time I try. I am all-in on making progress continuously and never worrying about anything being perfect. That’s been the secret sauce to this whole transformation. In fact, most of the best performing aspects of our business today are pieces of other things we tried that flopped initially and that we spliced together or came up with more inventive ways to deploy.

My point is this – if you dig into the self-help sphere or study any admirable businessperson who has found success in life in an honest way, you will undoubtedly hear something about the importance of failure. Some say, “Failure is the mother of all success” and others say, “Fail forward.” This blog post is essentially me using my life story to try to illustrate that same premise. If you fear failure, you fear success. Because you are never going to get one without the other. If you can internalize that truth and find the courage to reframe your mindset around failure so that you can experience it with indifference and channel your intelligence to use it to create a better opportunity to succeed on the next attempt, you will find yourself getting closer to your goals. Little wins compound over time into big wins, and when you approach life with the right attitude, your losses can actually set you up for much bigger wins down the road. There is freedom in failure when we recognize it as a temporary setback to learn from, rather than something final that crushes us. It can be painful, but all forms of growth are painful. Accept it, embrace it, utilize it. If failing is the worst outcome, realize that you can’t lose because failing doesn’t really mean anything. It only has as much power over you as you choose to give it. You have the ability to take every obstacle, every challenge, and every setback in your life and turn it into raw material that you can use to achieve your wildest dreams.

Remember: Failure is an inextricable component of progress – and continuous progress is the whole game.