On Failure and Faith

Whatever your faith, this story will inspire (and challenge) you to look at failure in a new way.

Failure isn’t the opposite of success. In fact, it is a crucial step along the pathway to success because it provides the greatest opportunity for adaptation and growth. Failure forces you to adapt and grow in all the ways you will need to in order to sustain your success in the future.

On Failure and Faith

In early September of 2016, I received an email from Prime Time Productions, distributor of The Secret documentary film that was written and produced by Rhonda Byrne. I was informed that my personal success story was being included in Rhonda’s upcoming book titled How The Secret Changed My Life: Real People. Real Stories. They would also be mailing me copies of this book and The Secret: The 10th Anniversary Edition, both personally autographed by Rhonda herself, as a thank you to me for sharing my story with them a year earlier.

I was thrilled! I was in Bangkok, Thailand, at the time and scheduled to return home to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, at the end of the month—just in time to receive my shipment of free books from them. What a wonderful way to cap a memorable six-month working holiday which was the latest in several bucket list items I had realized over the past three years. I seemed to have caught some type of prosperity wave after months of focusing on love and gratitude—on wishing for both “good luck” and “good news” in my life—and this email from Prime Time Productions told me I was still riding it.

With results like these in my life, I felt confident in my decision to take the next big risk. Who wouldn’t? I planned to focus 100% on building my business rather than using yet another full-time corporate sales job as a crutch upon my return home.

It never occurred to me that I might fall from grace at that point—not as far down as I did, anyway. I figured failure was somehow a thing of the past for me. But no. Far from it.

Fall From Grace

What happened next was possibly the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. It really shook my faith and had me questioning everything I believed in for a time. Still, through this catastrophe, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the benefits of failure and the dangers of having a “success is the only option” mentality—a lesson that, in retrospect, I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I am healthier and wiser because of a prolonged and challenging failure I experienced from the summer of 2017 through to the summer of 2019. I’m also grateful the experience came at this stage in my career when there was very little at stake. My faith is now restored and stronger than ever. My gratitude and sense of humour are both intact once again. I’m ready to talk about it now, and I hope the manner in which I share my story makes you giggle as often as it makes you cringe. I pray for goodness and spiritual growth to come from writing this book—for all the characters mentioned in it, whatever your faith may be.

“Ethics is about how we meet the challenge of doing the right thing when that will cost more than we want to pay.”
~The Josephson Institute of Ethics