Ep 074 Museum of Failures Audit 1

I publicly dissected my failure on this podcast episode. Here's what I found.

This isn't a highlight reel. In this episode, Shalvika opens the Museum of Failures — a new recurring segment where she publicly audits what didn't work, layers into why, and maps out exactly what she's doing differently. The episode covers a three-month business dip, a launch that didn't hit target, a challenge she didn't complete, and the three lessons and three action steps that came out of going that deep. This is what radical honesty in business actually looks like — not as a trend, but as a practice.

Key Takeaways

• Being completely sold on an idea isn't enough — you have to be equally sold on the frequency and form of how you show up for it. The gap between those two is where most launches fall apart.
• "No one cares if you write or not" is not discouraging — it's the most liberating thing you can hear. Your hesitation is self-imposed. The permission you're waiting for doesn't exist.
• Respecting your cyclical energy isn't woo — it's resource management. Trying to operate at full capacity during your lowest-energy phase is a fast track to overcommitting and underdelivering.
• Minimum Success Criteria is the antidote to the overachiever's trap. Decide the bare minimum that makes a day successful — and start there. Everything beyond that is a bonus.
• Joy is not a soft add-on. It's the fuel that makes you blow past your own limits without even noticing. When you're aligned, one and a half hours becomes three. That's the data.
• Resilience isn't built by avoiding discomfort. It's built by choosing to be uncomfortable on purpose — regularly, intentionally, even joyfully.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Vladimir — TV series on Netflix (This is a recommendation)
• The Creative AF Live: free 3-part video series

Work with Shalvika:

• 🔥 Creative AF Experience (A year long experience for the creative entrepreneur)
• Follow on Instagram

Transcript

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Your Aligned As Fuck Life with Shalvika.

So this episode I am calling my "Museum of Failures Audit." But before I actually dive into the audit and my thoughts about that, I wanted to first walk you through what is happening in my life and my world right now.

The last three months or so have been a little low in terms of results — like pure business results in my business. Clients haven't come in as much as I expected them to. So obviously, if the clients don't come in, the money doesn't come in as expected. And I know this is a part of running a business — the ups and downs are a big part of running a business. So it's not like I am in any financial need. Money hasn't come in, but I don't really need the money to come in either, because I am at that stage in my business where I have built that revenue backup for myself.

So this is the first time I am experiencing such a long dip in my clients and my income after actually becoming financially free — by that I mean that my business has made enough money that it can still sustain me when the extra additional money is not coming in. It's a very different experience to face a dip from this space of safety and not being worried about where the next thing is going to come from.

And that got me thinking: since my circumstance of being in this dip is different than it has ever been — unique to anything I've faced before — why not do something unique to go along with it?

So that's what I asked myself: what is that unhinged, fun thing? And I decided to actually embark on a public experiment in radical honesty. If you've been around me, if you've been following me for years, you know that one of the things that I love is just shaking things up. I have done so many challenges over the last few years that I randomly take up on myself. And I thought, let me do this. A public experiment in radical honesty. And that is what brought me to this idea of a Museum of Failures Audit.

THE MUSEUM OF FAILURES AUDIT

So here is what I'm going to try and do. About once every month, I'm going to do an episode on the Museum of Failures Audit, where I am going to publicly go and dissect parts of my failures — parts of things that did not work for me in the past month or so.

Today's failure: I said I would have 30 people for the June cohort of this three-day program I was running called "The Creative As Fuck Life." And I didn't. I got, I think, 13 or 14 sign-ups — which is honestly not bad because this was the second cohort. In the previous one I had 18 or 22 or something like that. So overall I've had about 30 people at least who have gone through it. But I decided I was going to get 30 people and I did not.

So here's what I did to try and achieve that. I started this public experiment called "Becoming Audacious As Fuck" where I decided that every day I'm going to take one audacious action in my business in order to get 30 people inside The Creative As Fuck Life — and I was then sharing those prompts with my audience.

And the thing is — I didn't really complete it. It's still going on, I haven't abandoned it. I'm just not giving a prompt every single day anymore because I realized it was getting a little too much for me. Doing the action, creating the content for that, putting it out there in addition to actually coaching people. So yeah, I didn't follow through the way I intended to. And I wanted to go a step deeper.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE AUDIT

So we started with the fact that I didn't end up with 30 people. Then I said I started "Becoming Audacious As Fuck" as part of the launch plan — but I didn't complete that. Now let's go another layer deeper. What does the fact that I didn't complete "Becoming Audacious As Fuck" teach me?

Lesson One: I have to be completely and utterly sold on the idea.

I know this because I've been doing this for six years, so it's not something new to me. But I just forgot, I guess. In the past whenever I have been completely sold on an idea, I have had the most successful launches. I've actually gotten the results I decided from the get-go that I would get. But if I think about it honestly, I wasn't really sold on the frequency with which I decided to show up. I was sold on the idea, but not the execution.

Lesson Two: I am doing this for myself and no one cares.

Hear me out. I don't know if any of you has watched this series on Netflix called Vladimir — it's with Rachel Weisz, who was in The Mummy series. I used to love those as a kid, by the way.

So anyway, in Vladimir, the story is about this middle-aged English writer. She's written one successful novel and hasn't really written anything after that. There's also a young writer just starting his career, teaching at the same university. At one point he asks her why she hasn't written. She says she's had the biggest writer's block ever — 15 years and still blocked. And he goes: "That's bullshit." She says, "What do you mean?" He says, "No one cares if you write or not." She thinks he's kicking her down further. He says, "No. The point is no one cares if you write or not. People are not sitting around thinking about you."

In that moment it didn't feel very powerful to her. But sitting here auditing my own failure, I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for myself and no one cares. And not no one cares in a lonely sort of way — but no one cares in the way that is liberating. Because anyway no one cares. So if I go out here and actually do this experiment in public radical honesty, it won't matter because it's something I'm doing for myself, not for anyone else. Every creation that you do is something that comes through you. It's birthed through you, you are the medium. It's utterly and uniquely you.

Lesson Three: The pattern of rabbit-holing and overthinking.

That pattern of just overthinking every single thing — I think all of us have experienced that at some point, but it has been really dominant for me with this particular result.

ACTION PLAN: DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY

So what am I doing to change it? Here are three things.

Step One: Assessing My Current Capacity.

Women are cyclical beings. Our bodies work on a cycle and because our bodies work on a cycle, our energy also works on a cycle. Right now I am in the luteal phase, which means my energy is low. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do anything — it means I'm going to do more introspective things. Reading, journaling, dreaming up, visualizing, planning. It is not the energy of: go record 10 videos in a day and write six emails and talk to 10 different people and record the entire month's podcast in one sitting. It's more subdued, introspective, slow-moving energy.

So if when I'm at my max energy I'm spending five hours a day doing my work, and now I'm at say 30% of that energy — that's one and a half hours. Now if in one and a half hours I decide I'm going to write 10 notes for Substack, record a podcast, write an email, create a couple of Reels, write the captions, and search keywords — that's going to be a lot. And that is where I end up overcommitting. I don't respect my available energy.

Step Two: Setting Minimum Success Criteria.

Instead of that, I'm going to decide on minimum success criteria. This is the minimum I have to do in any given day. My minimum threshold today was: I am going to create one long-form content piece. And that is this podcast episode. Now I know I have overshot my one and a half hours — but that is what happens when you are completely sold on what you're creating. You decide you're going to work for one and a half hours, but here you are ideating, brainstorming, creating brain maps of the episode and then sitting down to record. That is what ends up happening when you are completely aligned with what it is you want to create.

So the question is: what is the bare minimum that I expect from me for this day to be successful? An unsuccessful day would be when I don't create something. That's how you arrive at your minimum criteria.

Step Three: Bringing More Joy and Fun.

The third thing I want to do is ask myself: how can I make this more fun? What would actually bring me joy?

This episode is that for me — because I am someone who gets a fucking kick out of challenging myself to do things that are weird and uncomfortable. Like coming out here and talking about how I dropped the ball on every single thing. But I also analysed what went below each of those things and how I'm planning to remedy that.

So ask yourself: how can I bring more fun into this process? What does fun look like for you? If you feel like you are not there yet, or you are just barely meeting your targets, or maybe like me — you're in a good place but you feel a little stagnant — ask yourself: how can I bring more joy? Does it look like making a massive vision board? Does it look like running a public radical honesty experiment? Or is it booking a trip and giving space to what wants to be birthed? That's absolutely okay too.

What I know is this: once in two weeks, do something a little crazy. It will bring joy, it will build confidence, it will force you to take audacious action — and it will build your resilience. Because you are going to face dips. If there's anyone who says that's not going to happen, I just feel like they maybe haven't run a business long enough. Your business will experience dips. And the more you practice being a little uncomfortable regularly, the more capacity you have to actually face them.

CONCLUSION AND BUSINESS UPDATES

So yeah, that's what I have for you today.

I also have a small segment to share: I'm currently going through a massive pivot in my business identity. I am now moving towards working exclusively with creatives and creative entrepreneurs — be it one-on-one, in group coaching programs, or in one-off sessions. That's what I really want to do.

And that's where this podcast is also going from henceforth. By the time I drop an episode the next time, I will have a completely new name for the podcast, it's going to get a rebrand, and it's going to be bigger and better. We are going to have frank conversations and of course do more Museum of Failures kind of stuff.

I hope you learned something from my radical honesty experiment — where I came here and publicly dissected my failure. I would love to know your thoughts. Reach out to me on Instagram at @shalvakap — I'm linking it in the show notes. See you next time.

Before you go — if you're curious about my work, I'm also adding a link to my three-part free video series called "The Creative As Fuck Life." If you want to understand what I do — the identity work, the money work, the worthiness work — this will give you a taste of it. Alright, I will see you next time. Ciao!