Failure is not an option.

“Failure is not an option!” RAH, RAH! ARE YOU PUMPED?!

I have always disliked the phrase, “failure is not an option”. I understand why people say it as a pump up, motivational mantra... but the truth is that failure is always an option. 🙅🏻‍♂️

Every business venture, every decision I make is done with logic, weighing the upside versus the downside & I have the mental conversation of, “what happens if it fails?”

This is risk. ⚖️

When I have that conversation, I don’t pull any punches or sugarcoat it & I also don’t perceive it to be the end of the world and let it become a giant fear.

I simply look at things black & white and very literal. ⚫️⚪️

When I started my first supplement store, I asked myself EXACTLY what will happen if I failed?

I had a nice truck with some equity & I would need to sell that, buy a beater & put that equity towards the debt I was incurring to start the store. I would need to liquidate the inventory and fixtures & would put that towards the debt. I would probably then be left with $50k of debt and would go find a job and work on paying that back.

That’s less than what a lot of people I know have in school debt (ones that didn’t even decide to finish & get their degree), so I was okay with that risk.

Once I knew EXACTLY what failure looked like, there was no more horror movie playing through my head of what my life would be - it was just time to go put in the work.

Now a few years in, I have had people say to me, “oh come on man, you’re not going to fail!” Or “Failure is not an option” and “don’t talk about failure!”

Failure is always an option.

Failure is always on the menu.

Just like there is evil in the world, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

You can’t be ignorant to that.

Don’t focus your energy on failure but be very aware that the path isn’t guaranteed unicorns & rainbows. 🦄🌈

But once you determine exactly what it looks like, you can work your ass off to ensure it doesn’t happen and focus better on making progress. 📈