Stop Making Failure a Badge of Honor

Watch the episode here:

• Rick breaks down why your first failure hits hardest and how to survive it.
• Real story of how a podcast went from 7 downloads to 50 countries through persistence.
• Learn the difference between temporary defeat and permanent failure.
• Discover why “easy” success will never fulfill you long-term.
• Get the mindset shift that turns every setback into your next breakthrough.

What’s shakin’? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan, and today we’re going all in. Failure is something a lot of podcasts, Instagram weirdos, and all those people talk about, right? And they talk about failure in a way as if it’s a badge of honor. I may have mentioned my views on that a little bit before, especially talking about, and you should go back and listen to the episode about temporary defeat versus permanent failure, right? There’s a difference between those two. But today we’re going to talk about how you actually get to more successes out of these failures or these temporary defeats, because it’s very easy. It’s so easy to get, like, hit it just square in the face. I mean, the first time you try to do something and you’re like, oh my god, this is going to be the next big thing, right? And you have this amazing idea. How many of you have been there? How many of you have been like this? Is it? This is what I want to do, maybe even for the rest of my life. I have this thing that I’ve come up with: whether it’s a new job, a career choice, a new product, a new service, or something to actually provide, you know, to be an entrepreneur about, just go after it with everything you have to go all in on something in your life. 

And when the first time you get up there and you do it, if it’s speaking on stage, if it’s coding a new app, if it’s developing a new product, or maybe even if it’s getting into your first relationship, whatever it is, and you crash and burn like dead in the water. It sucks. Oh my gosh, does. It sucks because you get to this point where you’re so excited, and then you just get hit so hard right out of the gate, like, well, I guess that’s not it. You know, if I were to talk about podcasts for a moment, this podcast, right? All in with Rick Jordan, this podcast is almost 300 episodes now, 300 started back in 2018, okay, and actually 2019, I, you know what? I can’t remember. I think you know it was 2019 beginning of 2019 is when this started, right? We’re at 300 episodes now, which is just mind-blowing to me, you know. And we started out, I’m not even joking, started out with like seven downloads, no kidding, right? And now today it’s in 50 plus countries, with fans and subscribers in 50 plus countries, and tens of 1000s of downloads per month. And people go to news media like Bloomberg and all these places to actually see my credibility and see my show, this show right here, and like, oh my gosh. And then they want me on more and more because they see all these things that I’m doing right.

 And I cannot tell you how many times, because it just became a grind, and how I just was like, is it worth doing it? Is it worth doing? And even, like, honing in on the audio and all of the video and building out a studio that I’m in right now, you know, using different studios and trying to get that right? You know, even, like, two months ago, we were playing with the audio again; it’s like, it sounds kind of distorted. You can go back, maybe, and listen to those episodes, you know. Why does the audio sound a little bit distorted? We’ve got to fix this, right? So it’s another try and another try and another try and another try and another try, and then finally, at some point, you start to see a little bit of momentum. When some of these things happen, you start to see little edgeways into what you’re actually thinking of, or what you actually thought of, rather, what your dream actually is, what you dreamt a long time ago, and hopefully continued to keep that dream alive to this very day when you first gave it your very first try. That first hit is always the hardest. Whenever you try and you get smacked on your ass. That first hit is always the hardest, and you will get hit. You will get hit hard in whatever you try. 

Because if it’s too easy, if it’s too easy for you when you go after something, when you have this dream, if it’s a business, a product, a new career, a relationship, whatever, if it’s too easy, it’s not for you. Do you hear me? If it’s too easy, it’s not for you, because we’re meant to be challenged. There’s no way that you’re going to fulfill your potential in life if you do not have hardship—you have to have hardship. You have to have failures. You have to have these temporary defeats. You can hit success right away. Of course you can, but you will have setbacks, because if it’s too easy, there’s no way that you’re going to feel fulfilled. That is as long as you want to help other people. People on this planet, otherwise you’re just looking inward. If you’re like, Well, I made a bunch of money. Cool, I’m set. That’s not why we’re here, everybody. That’s not why we’re here. 

We’re here for the benefit of everybody else around you. That’s why we live on this planet. It is to be in a social network with everybody else and help support everybody else and what their purpose is in life. And all of us are supposed to move together and move forward. You’re here to do things for other people, period. So if it’s too easy for you, there’s no way you’re going to be fulfilled. You’re going to get hit. And those first hits are always the hardest. You know, they might help you decide whether it’s actually right for you, whether you want to go after something else. But even that alone is something that you can consider to be a try, like a trial, to figure out it’s not necessarily doing the same thing over and over and over again until you finally reach success; these temporary defeats, these tries, could be actually discovering if it’s something that you want to do. And that’s cool, because you want to try as much as you can, especially in your younger years. Try as many possible things, and even more so, fail and as many things as you can to figure out exactly what you love, because here’s the phrase I want you to remember today: more tries equals more successes. 

More tries equal more successes, even after you achieve some level of success, which I know that I have public companies all over the media, podcasts, and in 50 countries. You know, I was so grateful that I was able to actually get my twins, who are 15. I was able to purchase them a vehicle. I never had that, right? I was able to purchase them a vehicle, which they’re actually helping pay for, but able to just provide that in their lives is something I always wanted to do, and I’m so grateful at it, because that, to me, was a measurement of success, because I can do that for my kids, for my family. That was an amazing day for me. Just a few weeks ago, I never would have gotten there and had that success, or what I saw as success in these grateful moments, if I didn’t continue to try, and when I reached these levels of success, now it’s like, hey, what else am I gonna try? That’s cool. I reached that level, but you know what? I could probably go higher, because if I try some more to keep pushing up, to keep leveling up, I know that I’ll have more successes, because more tries equal more successes. If you want success in life, you have to keep trying. You have to keep pushing, even if you’ve reached a level already. You have to do that; otherwise, you will never be fulfilled. I know you want to be fulfilled. I know you want to be successful. Keep trying it, keep taking the hits, keep getting back up, and go all in on you.