By now you probably know that my fundraising campaign for F.A.I.L. to Win: For All Is Love (the book) is finished. Unless you actually looked at it again you may not know that I only raised about a ⅓ of what I was aiming for. I did raise about ½ of the bare minimum I need just for the publishing process (that doesn’t include things like printing, shipping, etc.) If I were an all or nothing kind of gal it would be easy to see this as a failure. After all, I’m on the hook for the rest and quite simply…I don’t know where it’s going to come from but honestly, it’s hard for me to see it as anything other than a successful experience. I look at it this way, I gained quite an education AND raised money. For someone who usually pays for her knowledge this is quite a coup!

My next blog post will be about what I’ve learned and how it is I can find success in this. But right now I want to talk about the risk I took and why it’s important to me.

I realize now, that putting my dream out there for the world to see, comment on, donate to, participate in or….ignore has put me in a unique place of vulnerability. I’m no stranger to vulnerability. Truth be told I’ve been there, it feels, the majority of my life. But this is new.
This is not my physical self at risk – unless you count what happens to my finances as a result of this campaign falling so short of its goal – but I’ve encountered financial troubles before.
This is not my emotional self – unless you count the feelings of rejection that came up during the campaign – but I’ve encountered those before.
This is not my psychological self – unless you count the countless discussions I had with my own life coach, friends and accountability partners about my miscalculations and assumptions.
This is something entirely different.
This is my inner-self. My most intimate, most sacred, most delicate self. This is my Truthful self and having that out there for the world to treat as they see fit was nothing short of terrifying.

For years I’ve been asked why I do what I do. For years my answer has been, “I want people to love themselves again.” That is my dream. Notice, it is not my dream to add “published author” to my resume – it is my dream to provide the tools that bring people back to Love (capital L). It is my dream that we stop letting the trolls, the critics, the unintentional bullies and the arbitrary assignments of beauty, success and worth define for us what we can and cannot create, forgive, design, leap into, run away from or Love. The only way we can be totally free to bring our deepest gifts to the world is if we stop waiting on what we think ourselves and others “should” do, if we stop waiting for conditions to be perfect and if we stop waiting for some magical arrival point to happen so that we can, once and for all embrace and share our gifts.

The time to embody our gifts is now. The time to share our gifts is now. Which means that the time to be vulnerable (and possibly “fail”) is now.

Happiness is found in the journey, not the destination. Well, whether we like it or not failure IS the journey. It is the missteps, the goof-ups, the embarrassments, the ownership, the learning curve, the “I don’t know what I want to be yet but I now know what I don’t want to be” eliminations. Failure is the stepping stone, the curiosity, the playfulness. Failure is even found in success; all of those times we just got it right but didn’t know to fully appreciate the hows and whys of what got us there – those are failure too simply because we couldn’t consciously build on what we did well.

We haven’t been taught the truth about failure. We’ve been told to avoid it, fear it, cover it up, deny it. We’ve told that fear is weakness, that to fail is to be worthless, a loser.

That’s why I’ve I created the F.A.I.L. to Win: For All Is Love system. So that you know exactly how to change not just your perspective about failure but your habits, your mindsets and you beliefs about past, present and future failures.

I’ve made myself incredibly (sometimes almost unbearably) vulnerable during this crowdfunding campaign. And you know what? Aside from all of the wonderful things I’ve learned (that I’ll post about next) – I’ve watched myself live life with a fullness I’ve long lost. I’ve seen myself come out of the other side of a risk of MY choosing. I’ve embraced my path (read: failures) with a verve and curiosity that is opening me up to greater and greater possibilities. I can feel it. In fact, I have a new goal for my networking/learning/workshopping experiences in 2015. I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I’m not going backward, you understand, but I’m going to be on the lookout for opportunities that I feel are out of reach or are speaking a language about success and connection that I’ll have to struggle to understand. I want this experience not because I want to feel foolish (though I’m sure I’ll have times that I will) but because I have defined failure for myself and not through anyone else’s lens. I have defined failure as “the things I learn when I strive for greatness and the uncomfortable happens.” That’s it. Woo hoo!! I’ve FAILED y’all!!!

How have you traditionally defined failure? How do you define failure today? What failures are you most proud of?

Oh…and by the way, you and your friends can still pre-purchase the book if you want.