Summary

The article emphasizes that perseverance through numerous failures is a crucial component of eventual success in various endeavors, from YouTube and Medium to personal relationships and career paths.

Abstract

The content discusses the importance of embracing failure as a stepping stone to success, illustrating that even the most accomplished individuals, such as Elon Musk, Steven Spielberg, and Walt Disney, experienced significant setbacks before achieving their renowned successes. It highlights that the journey to achieving common life milestones, such as finding a life partner or a fulfilling career, often involves a series of failures. For instance, it takes an average of 7 to 8 relationships before finding "The One," and individuals can expect to have around 12 different jobs throughout their lives. In the realm of content creation, the article points out that it requires approximately 151 videos to gain between 1,000 to 10,000 YouTube subscribers, and a Medium writer might need to publish 700 articles to earn $1,000 per month. The article encourages resilience, suggesting that each failure is evidence of effort and a necessary step towards success.

Opinions

Failure is not equivalent to being a failure; quitting prematurely is the true failure.
Successful individuals often have a history of many more failures than those who give up.
Persistence in the face of rejection or setbacks is a common trait among successful people.
The number of failures one must endure before achieving success is likely higher than most expect.
Finding "The One" typically involves going through several relationships.
Career satisfaction often requires exploring various jobs, sometimes even transitioning to a different field.
Aspiring content creators on YouTube should be prepared to produce a significant number of videos before gaining a substantial audience.
Writing on Medium is a long-term commitment, with substantial earnings being an exception rather than the norm.
Failure should be seen as a testament to one's efforts and a natural part of the success process.

You don’t suck at what you do. You just haven’t failed enough.

The number of times you need to fail before succeeding on YouTube, Medium, your career, and more.

I fail often. At many things. So do you. And if you don’t then you aren’t trying.

A “failure” is someone who quit before achieving their goal. Don’t get it confused. Just because you failed, doesn’t make you a failure. You fail when you quit.

A “successful” person has failed many more times than the average failure, but it only took one success for them to be considered accomplished.

If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward.

— John C. Maxwell

The number of failures you need before you start to see some success is probably much higher than you would expect. So before you even think about quitting whatever it is you’re doing, let’s take a look at the true numbers for how many failures it takes to succeed.

Famous Failures

There are many “successful” people we talk about today who stand on a mountain of failures. It’s hard to relate to these people because you could never imagine having the skills that they do. But little do you know that most successes started off with failure after failure. Some of which, we’ve all experienced.

Elon Musk failed to get a job at Netscape. He sent his resume in but never heard back. He then tried hanging around the office lobby but was too shy to talk to anyone. Without enough experience to get a job as a software engineer, this prompted him to start what is now known as PayPal.

Don’t even get me started with the number of rockets Elon’s exploded over at SpaceX. This video sums it up pretty well.

Steven Spielberg had low grades in high school. This got him rejected from the University of Southern California a whopping three times. He never ended up making it into his first-choice school. Instead, he attended the California State University at Long Beach where he didn’t complete his degree until 33 years later.

Walt Disney was rejected 300 times when trying to build his theme park. He had a dream of creating a place where people could go and experience the magic of his stories. However, no one else could envision it. The bankers thought it was outrageous. Now, Disney World and Disney Land are some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

The most successful people in the world have likely experienced way more failure than the average person. They exceed the norm in both success and failure. It’s hard to have one without the other.

Everyday Failures

How many tries does it take someone to achieve a normal goal? These are some stats on the number of failures you need to go through to arrive at life’s common milestones.

Let’s start off with finding the perfect partner, also known as “The One”. Relationships are tough. People will come and go throughout your life. But how many?

A study was conducted with 2,000 participants who have found “The One”. It was discovered that the average woman will have 7 relationships and the average man will have 8 relationships before ending up with the person that they choose to spend the rest of their life with. So don’t feel bad if your first few haven’t worked out yet.

Moving on to careers. You might have a dream job that you’ve been aspiring to for years. Unfortunately, it probably won’t bring you a lifetime of happiness considering that the average person will go through 12 different jobs.

In fact, 29% of people will end up in a completely different field from the first job they have out of college. If you’re in a career that no longer feels right, know that it’s a part of your journey to finding the right one.

YouTube

Becoming a content creator is another journey that is frustrating and full of failure.

To get 1,000–10,000 subscribers on Youtube, it takes an average of 151 videos. This means that if you post one video a week for three years straight then, congratulations, you might break the four-figure subscriber count threshold.

Ali Abdaal is a popular productivity Youtuber with 2.5 million subscribers and has earned almost $400,000 just from Youtube this past year. You could say he does well for himself.

It took him 52 videos in 6 months to earn his first 1,000 subscribers. He was making two videos every single week to have almost no one watch them.

Think about how long a Youtube video takes to plan, film, and edit. An aspiring creator would need to spend hours on end going through this cycle of video creation, not expecting any results for at least the first year.

If you were planning to start a Youtube channel, I hope these numbers give you some perspective on just how much shouting into the void you need to do before you can yield any results at all.

Medium

Speaking of shouting into the void, how about Medium? There are a wide variety of estimations on the platform.

A fellow Medium writer, David O., estimated that it would take 700 articles to make $1000 a month. Based on his own anecdata, it took him about 50 articles to start earning three figures a month.

In July 2020, 5.8% of active writers earned over $100 and this percentage has likely decreased today as more writers join the platform. As a new writer myself, it’s looking like a long road ahead.

While the top earners on Medium can make over $10,000 a month and there are articles about people making $1000 in their first month, it’s important to remember that these are the outliers. It is extremely difficult to yield results quickly, especially from writing. You have to be willing to write every day.

Failure is scary, discouraging, and it sucks. But that doesn’t mean you suck. Failure is proof of your resilience. You would have had to try to fail.

The world can only say no so many times before you get a yes. People can only ignore your Medium articles so many times before someone will read them. At least, that’s what I like to think.