just admit that you are a failure.

Failure. It’s not just feared — it’s forbidden.

From a young age, we’re taught how to succeed: get good grades, get into the right university, land the right job. We’re handed a script for how to climb — but no one teaches us how to fall.

Failure isn’t part of the curriculum. It’s not modeled. It’s not spoken about. And because we’ve never been taught how to fail, we hide it. We lie about it. We feel shame. We take it personally. We don’t think “this didn’t work.” We think “I didn’t work.”

And it is understanable. The Hustle Culture, marketing and media give a unrealistic idea that success is everywhere and for everyone. We only celebrates the win. Founders, athletes, influencers — they’re praised like modern gods, only when they’re winning.

Scroll through LinkedIn and it’s all promotions, launches, milestones. Nobody shares the panic of payroll or the terror of insolvency.

Why? Because failure hurts. Failure doesn’t sell. And failure feels like it only happens to you. So we pretend it doesn’t exist.

But it does. Everywhere. And ignoring it only makes it worse.

failure in my story

When I look back at my journey with råbowls, failure isn’t a side note. It’s woven into every chapter.

There were decisions I got wrong. Partnerships that drained more than they gave. Investments that never returned. And ultimately, an insolvency of the previous partnership that marked the hardest chapter of all.

It broke something in me. But strangely, it also gave me something I hadn’t developed before: Humility. Resilience. A quieter kind of strength. And the ability to keep showing up — even after being cracked open.

Over time, I came to see failure not as something to fix or hide, but something to stand in. To sit with. To learn from.

Because failure is honest. It shows you what truly matters. It humbles the ego. It refines your mission.

why hiding failure is dangerous

Failure isn’t only personal. When ignored, it becomes collective.

There’s another side to this — not just the shame of failing, but the damage caused by pretending it’s not happening.

When we don’t acknowledge failure, we block the one thing that could save us: course correction.

I’ve seen this in startups, and I’ve lived it myself. But one of the most recent examples I’ve come across was in the Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock '99.

The organizers saw the cracks forming: sanitation issues, safety breakdowns, crowd tension. But instead of admitting the plan was failing, they denied it.

And because no one named the truth, no one could respond. The result? Assault. Fires. A complete breakdown of structure and safety.

It’s extreme, but it’s not rare. (e.g. Better.com, Fast, Zirtual, Quibi, WeWork…)

We’ve all seen it:

• Founders too proud to admit their business model isn’t working.

• Managers pretending a campaign is winning while it bleeds cash.

• People clinging to broken relationships, systems, or teams because admitting failure feels like defeat.

But the opposite is true. Admitting failure is a sign of strength. It means you're self-aware enough to recognize reality — and brave enough to act on it.

When you name failure, you give others permission to help. You create space for adaptation. You prevent small cracks from becoming catastrophes.

failure humbles you

And perhaps even more importantly — failure humbles you.

There’s something strangely liberating about being brought to your knees by your own limitations.

It strips away your ego.
It softens your judgment of others.
It makes you less self-righteous.
More curious.
More open.
More human.

In a world obsessed with being right, failure brings us back to being real.

failure is the path

There’s a quote I love:
“Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.”

So maybe the question isn’t, “How do I avoid failure?”
Maybe it’s:
“How quickly am I willing to fail — knowing that each one brings me closer to what matters?”

That’s the founder I want to be.
And maybe — the human too.