The ugly side of growth is that it demands failure - not once, not twice, but over and over again. Most of us spend our lives trying to dodge that part, convincing ourselves there’s an easier way to evolve. But there isn’t. Every version of you that’s stronger, or more confident was built on the ruins of who you used to be.
It’s not a comforting thought. Failure bruises our ego, shakes our confidence, and leaves us exposed. Even when we know it’s inevitable, there’s a part of us that clings to the fantasy that maybe, we can get where we want to go without falling apart along the way.
I’m not immune to that fantasy either. I’ve had moments where the fear of falling short kept me from even starting. Thoughts like What if I’m not good enough? What if I waste years chasing something that never works out? loop in my head until they’re louder than my curiosity. Even writing this letter, there’s a part of me that wonders if it will resonate or if it will just sink into the void.
The more I think about it, the more I see that fear isn’t proof I’m failing, it’s proof I’m growing.
I was reminded of this while watching an interview with Donald Glover, where he talked about the failures that shaped his career long before Atlanta or Because the Internet ever existed. “You have to make a lot of bad stuff before you make something good,” he said. “Most of the early things I did were embarrassing. But that’s how you find your voice.”
That line stuck with me. We tend to see the polished result and assume that’s where the story begins. But behind every success lies a trail of failures - the scripts that never got made, the ideas that fell apart midway, the projects that once felt alive but ended in silence.
Robert Pattinson once said something similar when reflecting on his early years auditioning for roles. “I failed every audition I went for in my teens,” he told The Guardian. “I was terrible. I couldn’t get anything. It was humiliating, but I learned more from those failures than anything else.”
We look at someone like him now - confident, respected, constantly reinventing himself, and forget that his career was built on a pile of rejections that once felt unbearable.
And it’s not just actors or musicians. Steve Jobs, looking back on being fired from the company he founded, once said, “It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” That brick, that public humiliation, became the ground on which he built everything that came next.
Failure strips us down to the core of what we’re made of. It leaves us with the question: Do I still want this badly enough to try again? If the answer is yes, we come back wiser and stronger.
I think that’s why failure is so essential - because it clarifies. It forces us to let go of illusions and face what we actually care about. When something collapses, we have to ask ourselves whether we’re willing to rebuild it. And in the rebuilding, we grow.
Behind every success lies a series of failures we rarely get to see, trial and error that remains hidden from the public eye. It’s often said that Thomas Edison made 10,000 versions of the light bulb before achieving success. If there’s anything truly worth creating, failure is an inevitable part of the process.
You have to take a chance on yourself and your ideas. If your ideas turn out to be failures, don’t let that stop you from learning and trying again.
Do. Fail. Learn. The rest will follow.
This week’s wallpaper
This idea also lives inside Mid90s, the film I talk about in my latest video - a raw, honest portrait of how pain and growth are always tangled together. It’s a story about becoming, even when it hurts. Watch it here ↓
Every step, even the ones that feel like stumbles, is part of the climb. I hope this letter meets you somewhere on yours.
See you on the next stair,
Alastair