#4: failure for the win!

In this episode of Thoughts of a Dreamer: Out My Mind, Terri Nikki dives into one of the biggest dream-killers of all time: failure.

We’ve all been there—hesitating to post, launch, or pitch because of the shame and embarrassment tied to getting it wrong. But what if failure isn’t a dead end? What if every misstep is actually data, timing, refinement, or wisdom in disguise?

From childhood lessons that taught us to avoid the red “F,” to watching others push through “cringe” and leap ahead, Terri reframes failure as a necessary part of the dreamer’s journey. Using humor, storytelling, and a Scooby Doo-style analogy, she challenges us to unmask failure and see what’s really underneath.

This is your Failure Reframe Bootcamp—a reminder that success isn’t about perfect execution. It’s about becoming a successful failure, learning as you go, and refusing to let your dream die in your mind.

Transcript

Welcome back to the Thoughts of a Dreamer podcast with me. Miss Terri Nikki, now this is Season Two, and I'm calling this Out My Mind. Why? Because it's time to get out of our minds, okay, and actually do what we say we're gonna do. Now. Will we stumble? Yes, okay, now we'll probably take a couple of steps back absolutely but that is why we are here to recover, so that we can get where we need to be to do what we say we're going to do, okay, okay, let's go.

Have you ever said to yourself, Man, I cannot wait to fail.

I cannot wait to feel the shame and embarrassment and the negativity of failure that ish is exciting. Yes, I long for it, I crave it. I yearn it, I desire it. Yes, I know you don't. I know you don't.

Thing is really, honestly, seriously, not a lot of people do, especially dreamers, especially us dreamers. See, let me tell you something. We are locked into a tower of thoughts and dreams and aspirations, goals, inventions, innovations. In our mind, it's safe up there. So safe we know that if they see the light of day, they probably could change the world. It probably could possibly, maybe, potentially, you have no idea, maybe, but as of right now, is Locke saved up in our minds. Why? Because there's this

teeny weeny little polka dot bikini idea of failure,

failure,

and even though failure has this negative connotation around it, and it's such a big pill to swallow, it's a necessary step that we have to go through to actualize Our dreams. Okay, listen,

I for one, hate failure. Hate it. I was born a Krabby Patty. I was raised into a family of Krabby Patties. So therefore, right, wrong, win, lose, success, failure. There's a stark difference between the two, and I have always erred on the side of making sure that my T's were crossed, my i's were dotted, and I was on the wind train. Honey. All right. I did everything that I could to make sure that I felt the feeling of being a winner, winner. Chicken dinner. Right, right? It wasn't until I did the things that I genuinely wanted to do that I was faced with the harsh reality of what failure really was. In the past few episodes, I've been talking about fear and taking the fear with you. You know, having to reframe what exactly fear is in your life, what fear is in your dreamer's journey, putting that bad boy in the seat belt next to you and just taking it with you so you can show it exactly where to go, putting that bad boy in your purse, stuffing that thing in your wallet, just taking it with you. It's gonna be there regardless. You're gonna feel the feels regardless. You might as well just do it right, right? Well, see, encapsulated in that fear is some sort of idea possibility thought of failure, that you're gonna get it wrong, that people are gonna look at you, that they're gonna point their finger at you and say, haha, you're wrong. Ha, ha, that was a bad idea. Poo, poo to you in some sort of way that will then internalize shame and guilt and embarrassment and this negative connotation that we as humans try like hell to avoid. I mean, we've been taught at a young age to change the F on our papers to a plus Good job. You know, it's little things like that we have been embedded with this thought of right, wrong, win, lose, success, failure, and we try not to fail, regardless of whether you achieve the thing that you want to achieve or not. Maybe you don't get all the accolades, maybe you get half of the accolades, half of you are still going to be disappointed, and that disappointment is rooted in expectation, and that expectation has a connotation of shame, of guilt, which is synonymous to failure. So it's kind of all streamlined that negative.

Connotation of failure, embarrassment, disappointment, expectation, blah, it's all sitting right there in the seat next to you, waiting for something to say. I told you so.

And it doesn't feel good. It does not feel good unless, unless, dear friends, you have a reframe. Now, in that viewpoint that I had, I did not have the best idea of what a reframe was, and I didn't have the best idea of what failure was. I still was in right, wrong, win, lose, success, failure. I'm still in that black and white ideology of failure. So when I see other people doing things, whether they are more talented than me, not to compare, but whether they are more talented than me, whether they are just consistent at doing the same things. I'm sitting here looking at them like, you see this don't work for you. You see, this is cringe. You see, this is secondhand embarrassment. Why are you doing this? Oh, I would never you know. But fast forward, they continued their cringe, they continue to post they use their consistency. They put themselves out there. Five months later, three months later, they are leaps and bounds ahead of where you are being a hater behind the scenes because you did not want to embrace or encounter failure. But what I have learned the hard way, I might add the hard way, failure is not right or wrong, it's not left or right, it's not up or down, it's not win or lose, it's not success or failure. It's so much gray in between.

And if you do not accept the fact that failure

is not lost,

you are going to lose out in your dream. Your dream is going to die with you. And I, I can't stand for that. I can't stand for I can't do it. I can't stand for that. So listen to me. We're gonna do this together. Me, you, I, we, us, we're gonna do this together, and we're gonna go through a failure. Reframe, boot camp. Okay,

here are some examples.

You see that someone's doing something that cringe worthy. You're like, I could never do that. Let's say you did. Let's say that you posted something. You felt cringe worthy when you did it. But you know what, I'm gonna send it out. So you send it out and you immediately feel fear, you feel shame, you feel embarrassment, you feel that cringe that crept up in that inner critic that told you not to post in the beginning, right? But you know what? You also have gained engagement,

what works, what doesn't, ideas, motivation, and you have knocked out that fear that told you that you couldn't post. You've knocked out that fear that told you nobody was going to engage. You've knocked out the fear that said, You know what, no one wants to listen to what you have to say. Oh, they listened that they did. They may not have said what you wanted them to say

but they engaged. They boosted your page to now you're being viewed by more people. Reframe,

did it do what you initially thought it was gonna be do? No, it didn't. But that's okay, because underneath that, look at everything else you got in return, and see that's how you have to look at failure. Failure doesn't automatically mean you're gonna get everything in your head that you thought you were gonna get when you launched, what it is that you launched, when you did what it is you thought you gonna do. Sometimes it falls short of that, but if it falls short of that, it doesn't mean that it was a failure. That means that no had levels to it.

It is so important to think about a reframe. Let's think about this. If you strip failure down, if you strip failure out of its costume, ie, you are Shaggy, you are in the Mystery Machine with the gang. Okay, I might be dating myself, but it is what it is. You go out and you see all these people are are committing crimes, and you need to figure out who it is that's behind all these crimes, and they are in this costume. And you got to figure out who the hell it is that's haunting this old abandoned amusement park. Okay, so you.

Ooh, Shaggy. Scooby Doo in the gang, hop up in the mission machine, and you go, and you look for this culprit, and you find them, and you see them. And what is it dressed as? Failure. Okay. Failure. You have them roped up, and you face them. And then when you reach up and you grab their mask, and you take it off, and you realize that their failure is actually somebody that you know, you

want to know what that's something that you know is data.

Okay, you're sitting here thinking that that failure is something that's horrible, when it's actually something that's rooted IE, now I realize it's something that I don't need to do. Great. This is a data point. This is not something that I need to do. Or you pull the mask off and you say, oh, failure. You are actually refinement a stress test. You expose my weak spots. You show me what needs sharpening. I got you. I see you for what you are now. Ah, or you, you, you pull that mask off, and you look at who it was, and you see that failure, and you look at it as timing. You mean to tell me it just wasn't the right time.

That no does not mean that it was permanent. That was a lesson to be learned. The door is not locked. It just wasn't the right door at the right time. Or, or, okay, okay, I got another one. You see here, and you take that mask off, you take that failure mask off, and you look at it, and you like, oh, shoot, you're actually wisdom.

So you mean,

even though you were a misstep, I have learned from you,

you are wisdom in the skies. Oh, this is how the wise get wise. They go through stuff and they kind of misstep and realize it wasn't what it was gonna be, and then they realize what it is. Oh, shoot, you are wisdom. Yes, yes. You learn these things through failure. Through failure, you don't learn these things by pointing at other people who have done what it is that you want to do, and say, I could do it better, but you're just taunting and teasing. They're the ones that's learning the lesson. They're the one that's gaining the data point. They're the one that's realizing that that no right now is a yes in the future. They're the one that's realizing that, oh shoot, I just need to tweak it a little bit. I just need to tweak it a little bit.

But you're not getting that insight. You're getting the entertainment

because you have chose to look at failure as win, lose, yes, no, right, wrong, success, failure. And it is not

that no is layered, that no is complex, that failure. It's so much more than that. You have to change a relationship with failure. You have to change your relationship from win or lose to win. Or I gain insight to win, or I am looking at data now to win. Or

I see what works. I see what doesn't. It's not success or failure, it's success. Or I bet I can do it better, or now I know what not to do, or now I see what I can do, or now I know what I need to do.

But we have our thought process around failure as though it is the end all be all. It's so embarrassing. It's so shameful. People are not going to perceive me as an expert. I have to come out perfect. I cannot look and be put out in seed form. I have to be 100% at all times. I have to be perfect. I have to be this. I have to be that you are going to f yourself up. Let me just throw some stats out there. 90% of startups, they fail. Y'all know that 90% 90%

you have this great idea in your head, you launch it, you put all of your effort in, and 90% of the time it's against you, it's gonna fail. What are you going to do? Because if you look at failure as win, lose, right, wrong, yes, no, success, fail, then you're going to put that thing down and never touch it again. However, if you look at as yes or comma, maybe I could do it this way. Now I know how to do it this way. Now I know it works or don't work. Now I know the data. Now I know that maybe it's not right now, maybe it's a little bit later. And change that, reframe that idea, that mindset of how failure sits in your spirit, how failure sits in your head, then it's like, oh,

Nah. No. Okay, go. You.

There are so many different quotes out there about failure, but what they don't talk about is the reframe. What they don't talk about is how layered this thing is, the mindset that you have to have when it comes to failure, when you're actually doing this thing, when you're putting one foot in front of the other. How? Okay, okay, okay, let me pivot a bit. Let me pivot a bit, because my passion is taking me somewhere else. Let me also talk about these nos. Let me talk about some trade offs. You have an amazing invention, okay, I know it. I see it, I feel it. I know you do. You have submitted this idea to so many different people, and anything that you come back with is a no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not, nope, in every language that you can get. Now, if you reframe failure so much so that you're gaining these data points, you're gaining this ideology

so many no's will burn you the hell out. No after No, after No, after, no, after no will burn you out if you submit the exact same paper and everybody's telling you no, the exact same manuscript, everyone's telling you no, the exact same plot, the exact same script. People are telling you no

chances are you might need to refine just a bit, not telling you to change your whole model. You might need to refine just a bit.

Understand that people are resistant to change. You are resistant to change. If your idea is so abstract, think about this. Maybe they just need a bridge to get them from A to B. Think of the bridge. Think of what it is that they need to help them across to the bridge. Not telling you to just completely change your model, not saying that. I will never say that,

but I need you to not be foolish if you're getting 5000 no's. And the constructive criticism is saying the exact same thing. It's time for you to do a little bit of a reframe switch, the edges, a bit, how you present it a bit. Maybe give them a bridge, because they probably a little bit slow, you know, we slow, you know, we don't like change that much, filter in a little bit, give them a little bit of a ramp to get to your idea, so they can envision and see exactly how this is going to change their mother's loving lives.

You don't want to be too stubborn to where you don't either revise or change a little bit so that you can appeal to who it is that you need to appeal to.

Because if you get too many failures, baby, you're going to burn out. If you're so big on the reframe that you just are going to collect these nos, these no is going to look you in the face and they're going to point at you, and eventually going to get burned out. You're going to get discouraged and you're going to say, f it you're going to put it down. You're going to get a nine to five and go work at CVS as a cashier for the rest of your life. Not saying that that's a bad thing, but if that's not for you, it's not for you. You go to me. You go to me. You want to think about your social and your economic costs like

even when fear is rational,

you're still gonna feel shame. You might lose some coins. You might be so head strong in that thing, you lose relationships. Your reframe doesn't erase all the things you lose by being so strong in that thing. Be cognizant.

Don't be foolish. There is a way to pivot. There's a way to slightly pivot. Do not deprive yourself of changing slightly, lightening up your idea a bit, just to give it a new life, just to give it a new version, just to give it a new

face, lift you. Facelift, to integrate, to people's slow change process, to their ideology of change. You go, I'm saying, I say all of that to say this, we can do this.

We have to do this.

Your idea is important. Your thoughts are important. Your gift is important.

And in order for you to get this thing out, you have to change your ideology. You have to change your relationship with failure. We need you.

We need you

be a successful failure, like my friend Kevin on stage, be a successful failure. Okay, because you never know what that failure will do for you. All right, I think I've said enough. I'm out, I'm out, I promise. I'm out. See y'all next week, bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai