when nothing works

Summary

In this episode, Jerred challenges the common narrative of eventual success after repeated failures, emphasizing that entrepreneurship is a continuous cycle of problem-solving and adaptation rather than a linear path to success. He uses the analogy of wolves, which fail in 86% of their hunts yet remain apex predators, to illustrate the importance of persistence and resilience. Jerred argues that true success in entrepreneurship comes from embracing failure as part of the process and continually iterating on strategies, rather than expecting a single breakthrough to solve all problems.

Key takeaways:

• Entrepreneurship is not about eventually “making it” but about continuously facing and overcoming failures.
• Like wolves, which fail in 86% of hunts, entrepreneurs must persist despite frequent setbacks.
• Success comes from being comfortable with discomfort and learning from each failure to improve.
• There is no single strategy that guarantees success; instead, entrepreneurs must try multiple approaches and adapt.
• The real goal is to enjoy the process of entrepreneurship, finding satisfaction in the journey rather than the destination.
• Pressure and challenges should be seen as opportunities to become a better version of oneself, not sources of anxiety.

Transcript

what if nothing you do works?

What if everything you do doesn’t seem to work? Look, there is a ton of cliche things out there about failure and then eventually making it, right? There’s Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, and we all know Babe Ruth. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team. Colonel Sanders was rejected 1,009 times.

The list goes on and on and on about all these different things about how people failed, failed, failed, then eventually hit it big. And that’s not what I’m talking about, okay? Because that’s not how I feel entrepreneurship actually goes. It’s not, oh, I’m just going to keep trying. I’m going to keep slugging away.

I’m going to keep doing this thing over and over again. My persistence and my consistency is going to be what gets me to the next level. In a sense, it is, but you have to know that you don’t actually make it. You don’t make it. There’s no Colonel Sanders didn’t get rejected 1,009 times, and then he was just had it made for the rest of his life after that.

why “making it” is a lie

Babe Ruth didn’t strike out 1,330 times and then just have everything perfect. Michael Jordan wasn’t cut from his team and then have everything handed to him after that, right? What they people don’t explain when they have these stupid little motivational tweets and quotes is the fact that we are just going to be faced with failure every single day as entrepreneurs and really in life as anybody who’s trying to achieve something big.

You’re going to face a lot of failure. And I tried to write about this concept and explain it the best I could in my book, Killing Comfort, where I talk about how wolves are some of the most feared predators on the planet. In fact, if you just look at human stories, legend, folklore, wolves are always kind of at the center.

They’re a very feared predator. They’re very effective in instilling fear in humans and really being these amazing apex predators that people have a lot of admiration and respect for the wolf. But the wolf fails 86% of all of its hunts. So it’s going out on the hunt today, it doesn’t get it. And then it goes out on the hunt tomorrow, doesn’t get it.

It just fails over and over. Every time it hunts, 86% of the time, it fails. It doesn’t have an existential crisis. A wolf can’t get upset about it because the wolf has to survive. So the wolf just has to keep going. It’s the 14% success rate that keeps the wolf being this magnificent creature that we all respect and have created legends and they maintain being this apex predator, even though most of the time in their life, their main job, killing and eating prey, they suck at, hard, 86% failure.

the wolf analogy: 86% failure rate

And again, going back to, it’s not like, okay, they fail 86% of the time and then 14% they win and then everything’s good. No, everything’s good. They hunted and now they got to go fail 86% again before they can ever get to the 14% success rate. There’s just so much failure each and every single day.

Now, going back to my entrepreneurial journey, I feel the exact same way. And the reason I want to do this podcast is because if you’re feeling that way, I want you to know that it’s okay because we don’t make it. You don’t make it. There’s not another side. There’s not, okay, I’m at the top and I can just chill at the top.

All there will be is problem after problem after failure after failure. But what you have to realize is that is what you have to get comfortable with because I’m not coming on here and doing a podcast to try and make you feel bad about entrepreneurship or to discourage you or anything like that. What I’m trying to let you know is you have to have a thicker skin.

You have to be okay with a lot of failure. And so if we go down to a tactical level, you didn’t add campaign didn’t work. Cool. Do another one because you know what? We know advertising works. Advertising works. It’s been around as long as mankind can remember. Advertising works. So when somebody tells me advertising didn’t work for them, I just laugh.

why failure is the daily norm, not the exception

But ultimately, going back to the ad example, you do one campaign. Doesn’t work. Cool. Do another one. Doesn’t work. Do another one. Doesn’t work. Do another one. Doesn’t work. Do another one. One of them will eventually work. And that is the mindset that you have to take, not just with advertising campaigns.

It’s with everything. Oh, suck at leadership. Try again. Try the conversation again. Rethink it. Try again. Try again. You just have to keep going through this. And that is why entrepreneurship is the best personal development vehicle in existence. It’s because we have to continually get better, and we have to be okay with taking feedback from our failure and implementing it into the next iteration of what we’re trying to do.

So you are going to fail. And I feel like I’ve been at points in entrepreneurship where I can be like, people ask me about a strategy, and I’m like, there’s no one strategy that works. I can tell you what’s most effective, what has been most effective in my experience, but there was never just one strategy that was like, boom, I did this one thing, and I just blew it out of the water.

ad campaigns, marketing, and iteration

And I feel like that’s what everyone is selling out there. That’s what everyone’s selling. They have, oh, just sign up here, and we’ll put one funnel in your business, and everything is going to go bananas, or we’ll do this one marketing campaign for you, and everything is going to be amazing. It’s not true.

And I hope that nobody is selling you on that crap because it’s just not true. What we have to get comfortable with is trying a lot of things and having thick skin, letting it roll off of us, and know that’s the process. And then once you can find enjoyment in that process, that’s how you know you’ve, if there was ever any kind of making it, that’s making it.

Like when I launch a new campaign or we do something new and I fail, you know, that used to be devastating. Now it’s just like, yeah, of course it did because most campaigns fail. Most things don’t knock it out of the park. You don’t get a 1 out of 10 very often. Like that doesn’t happen all the time.

And that’s okay. It’s like, okay, what did we learn from that? Let’s reiterate. Let’s change. Let’s do something new. Let’s improve upon what we have learned. And that’s the process that you have to go through. And eventually, when you are so comfortable being uncomfortable, now you’re starting to enjoy entrepreneurship.

finding joy in the process (and why that’s the goal)

And it took me forever to get to that level. And the reason I really wanted to talk to people about this or really just come on the podcast and talk about it is because I think that’s the goal. I mean, that’s what you should be optimizing for. You should be optimizing for getting comfortable with the discomfort.

And if you can’t, if all entrepreneurship is doing to you is crushing you with anxiety and, like, you know, stress and you just don’t know what to do next, like, you either will become the diamond from the pressure or you will actually get crushed. But I think it’s a choice because we’re not actually materials from the earth like a diamond, right?

the choice: crushed by pressure or forged by it

We have a choice. And your choice is to let the pressure create a better version of you. I’ve been talking about things like, hey, you need to quit drinking alcohol. Hey, you need to go to bed on time. You need to wake up. You need to be a professional. I’ve been talking about that stuff on the podcast for a while.

But you have to become the person who can handle it because it’s not going to change. I can tell you at every stage of business I’ve been at from $1,000 a month to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, it does not change. There’s always a problem. There’s always something that you have to fix. And if that stresses you out and causes you a lot of anxiety, you’re doing it wrong.

You just need to realize that’s the game you’re playing. And then you’re going to do better next time. Try harder.