What's up, everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew.

Welcome back to Founders Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the business builder,

the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business,

a team, or a new product. Today, we are bringing you a classic episode originally published on

October 20th, 2021. This episode is centered on approaching failure in a way that can thoughtfully

accelerate your career. Let's hop into it. During my research on failure, I saw this great quote

by Shane Parrish on Twitter. He said, quote, failure is the cost of ambition. I think this is so

well said. That said, I also think it misses part of the picture, but I want to first talk about

where I agree. The good type of failure, the what I would call the misbranded type of failure,

which isn't at all bad, is the failure that is driven by ambition, like Shane Parrish referred to.

It's the failure where you want to grow yourself or your business, so you decide to try something

with a certain outcome in mind. You decide to make the leap and go full time on your side hustle.

You decide to sell an idea internally to senior stakeholders at your company.

You decide to raise venture money and try to build something massive.

And what ends up happening is after trying that thing, the outcome isn't as you had planned.

This is what I would call a great failure. This is the type of failure that needs to be rebranded

and celebrated. This is the type of failure that should be treated like a science experiment,

where failure is just a data point that allows you to adjust and change course.

I'd even go as far to say that the best businesses in the world treat failure like science experiments

and their entire companies are run like efficient science labs. Here's what I mean.

With every business, there's a question, which is your why, the problem you want to solve,

you're asking yourself why is something done this way? Why has it always been done this way?

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