Why Failure Is the Real Key to Success

Everyone wants success… but nobody wants to go through failure.

In this episode of The Mindset Academy, Terrence Feagin breaks down one of the most misunderstood truths about growth: success isn’t built on wins — it’s built on failure, stacked over time.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, discouraged, or questioning your progress, this episode will shift your perspective. You’ll learn why failure is actually the greatest teacher, how it exposes your weaknesses, and how each setback is quietly building the foundation for your future success.

This isn’t about avoiding failure — it’s about using it.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why failure teaches you more than success ever will
• How to turn setbacks into lessons and momentum
• The mindset shift that separates those who quit from those who win
• A simple framework to use failure as a tool for growth

If you’re in a season where things aren’t working, this message is for you:

You’re not falling behind… you’re building something.

Success is just failure — compounded.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Mindset Academy. This is the place where your excuses they come to die and your potential finally wakes up. I'm your host, Terrence Fagan, and I'm here to help you break your limits, level up your mindset, and actually live the life you keep on talking about. Look around here, we do not do fluffy motivation, we do real talk, proven tools, and a powerful conversation with people who've been through it and came out winning. So I want you to buckle up because we're diving into the psychology, the grind, and the glory of becoming your best self. This is the Mindset Academy. Class is officially in session. Welcome back to another episode. Yo, I'm always excited to be on this mic, sitting in front of this computer and sharing my experiences, sharing my thoughts, and yeah, just explaining how I feel at this current time. So today is April 27th, Monday. Get what time it is? Man, it is 4 50 a.m. So if my voice sounds a little raspy, one is because I'm sick, and two is because it's five in the morning. Hey, what was Pretty Ricky talking about? But anyway, man, we ain't you ain't here to hear me sing, right? Or you might be, and if you are, you're in the wrong place. But anyway, man, the mindset academy. But before I get into today's episode and what I'm gonna talk about, you know, I'm gonna give you some great dimes, some great information. This has been a very busy week. Last week, I was down in LA for the last two days just working at a staff retreat. Definitely a great time. One of the highlights that I can remember from the staff retreat is that we did a um last year during our work, um, we did a I guess it's like a personality test where they give you five different traits to really tell who you are as a person. And the first one was you know, futuristic. Basically, what that was talking about is how I'm forward thinking. My mind is really thinking about you know what the future could hold. And y'all kind of know that already by listening to this podcast and also listen to a lot of my videos on YouTube and just kind of watching exactly who I am. And I think that's really the Aquarius in me. But, you know, I'm not really big into astrology, but that was one of the big things. You know, it was definitely a lot of different other characteristics like um relator, which is basically me being able to talk and relate with any other individuals. Um, the what one of the biggest ones was significance, and the reason why I want to talk about that is because I was out of maybe 60 employees, I was one of the only individuals that had the title or the characteristics of being significant. So, what does that mean? What it was basically relating to is that this individual that's considered real um significant is someone who takes charge or someone who takes on a big task or someone who is, you know, willing to you know really stick his neck out there and become someone who takes on big projects. And that was good for me. And I, you know, looking at those traits, I'm like, wow, you know, that is me. A lot of those things really do represent who I am and what I want to do, and you know, the person I want to be. And it just kind of relates to, you know, my work, but it also relates to my personal life and what I do here on this podcast, the Mindset Academy, is because out of all those individuals, I was the only one that had this trait, and it showed me that I stand out, you know, by the things that I read, by the things that I watch, the things that I listen to, and the person that I want to become, is that I'm significant amongst my peers, and they know that. And when they they found out who was the only one that was significant, they were like, oh, that fit you. Man, oh, I should have guessed that already. You know, my height and who I am appearance-wise, it really does show. It does show that, you know, I'm someone who who sticks his neck out there, I'm someone who takes on, you know, big duties. But you know, where I what I really want to get to is that if you want to be significant in this life, it's really about the different traits that you take on, you know, and those traits are built by your history, your your event, your environment, and the things that you do, and the things that you see, and the things that you want to become. So if you want to be significant in this life, continue to improve on that, continue to figure out what you want to have in this world. And it may not show right away, you know. Growing up, I didn't think I was significant, but get what? Your boy grew into it, man. So listen, let's get right into this podcast, and that's what you're here for. You want to hear what I got to say. So the one thing I really want to say here, and this is a bold statement. Everybody wants success, but nobody wants what it's made of. What do I mean by that? There's a quote I heard that you know, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die for it. Think about that. Really sit back and think about that. Everybody wants the glory of heaven, everybody wants the glory of success, but nobody wants to work hard. You gotta think like success is really built on failure after failure, on top of failure, on another layer of failure, on years and grinding of failure. Think back to the Bible, like, you know, the Hebrews they were brought out of Egypt and they thought they was gonna go straight to the milk and honey, the land where it was flowing. But what happened? It took them 40 years to really get there. That's 40 years of failure. Man, success is not built on wins. I was telling my daughters over this weekend of, you know, um, over this weekend they had a dance competition. And that's one thing I didn't mention a dance competition with the Disneyland. So it's been a really, really busy weekend. But anyway, I was telling them, like, you know, you learn more from your failures. You learn from your failures, more do you learn from your successes? But everybody thinks that once they become successful, they'll learn it all. No, most of the people that become champions, they don't learn anything until they've lost. They've lost, they lost, they lost. And when you learn how to lose or you learn the lessons within your failure, that's when you can start to pick up on the different things that you have to do during your journey to be successful to get to the end. Man, we've all had failures. If you in this life and you haven't had a failure, you know what that means? You ain't doing enough, you ain't trying enough, you ain't seeing enough, you haven't been in enough conflict to really see what's happening. And if you don't understand this, you'll quit too early. You'll quit. But that's the thing, like in this life, when you quit, that means you really truly fail. Like, so you really never really fail in life until you quit. Man, I've quit so many different things, and you know, I look back at those and I'm like, now that I'm a grown man, now that I have kids, and now that I'm inspiring, not just my kids, my peers, and the people that are around me, and the people that are listening to me all around the world. But really, is that you don't truly fail until you quit. So don't quit. Keep going, keep you know, keep learning those failures. And this is the thing, like, is another quote that I learned is that embarrassment is a under or un a let me say that again. Embarrassment is a underachieved emotion. So go out there and embarrass yourself because the more you embarrass yourself, the more you learn how to fail, and the more that you know people see you fail, that's just the more glory that you can give God. That's just the more glory that you can really, you know, love and and appreciate during yourself, you know. As you fail, you you get better at learning how to do these things. You gotta be okay with it, all right? But let's talk about reframing success. There's a common belief that a lot of us put towards success. A lot of us think that success is gonna always equal talent plus luck. But you have to really replace the truth with is that success it equals failure plus learning plus persistence. I say that again persistence plus learning plus failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure is gonna always equal success. Now, let's break that down. After years of learning, working hard, busting your ass, and failing, you keep failing, you keep learning, you keep being persistent. Eventually, the world is gonna turn to you, eventually, it's going to give up. Eventually, you keep knocking out a brick wall with the tools, you keep learning how to upgrade your tools. Eventually, that brick is gonna start to crumble, crumble, crumble. It's gonna start to crumble the more you upgrade, the more you hit it, the more you consistently go at it, it's going to crumble, but you can't crumble in the process. You have to have your faith, you have to understand that it's going to work out for you, you know. And I'm kind of hard-headed with that. I I've been persistent for a very long time. I'm persistent at developing my craft, I'm persistent at developing my education, I'm persistent at you know, failing and and working hard and chopping at the tree. And I just can't give up because I know on the other side of it, it eventually is gonna equal the things that I write down in my journal, it's gonna equal me becoming great. People they celebrate the outcomes, but they never celebrate the process. And as I'm thinking about this, as my alarm is going off, it's five in the morning, y'all. I'm actually, you know, up before my alarm because I want to be great. Also, because I couldn't sleep, I had things on my mind that I'm expressing here today on this mic. But you know, people they always want to celebrate the outcome and not the process, but the process what gets you to the outcome. The outcome is there, yeah, but you got to go through the process. As I'm thinking about this, I always think about Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant always talked about the process, the journey, the journey, the process, the journey. You know, and Kobe is arguably one of the top players in the NBA history. But think about some of the other people that went through the journeys of their life. Think about, you know, the Oprah's, the the Bill Gates, the you know, the Robert Crafts, the, you know, the Robert. Um dang, I can't even think of his name right now, which I know I'm talking about one of the wealthiest businessmen in the world, you know, um, that owns a venture capitalist firm. It's crazy. I can't even think of his last name right now. But just all these individuals that go through the process and the outcome is where it is. Tyler, Tyler Perry just popped up in my head. You know, growth comes from struggle, it's not ease. Nothing comes with ease. Nothing will ever grow from ease. Everything in this world, it's like God created, you know, this world to have issues, to have problems, to have, you know, struggles in order to really see and magnify his glory. But it's not until you go through the struggle to where you will really, really be able to, you know, express success. So you really what happens is that your brain is going to adapt from the mistake, you know. And when you learn how to adapt from those mistakes, that's when you win. That's what really matters. That is when you will figure out how to make it happen. It's like a map, it's like going through a maze. You start at the front of the maze, and at the end of the maze, there's all types of stops, wrong ways, you know, different patterns that you have to learn. But as you start to build that cognitive map in your brain, that's when you start to figure out I just went that way. Let's go back this way. You might even start to put little, you know, little markers or like different ways that you say, like, okay, I've already been this way because I see this right here. I see that I made this mark on this wall. So let's go this way. And that's what really what failure is is teaching you the right way to go. It's really teaching you the right way to go. One of the better books that I've read around this is uh the book that is called Cyprus Psych Cyber Cybernetics. Man, you know, give me a minute. This is five in the morning, dog. But cyber cybernetics is basically a book that teaches you that your brain is kind of like a um, well, your brain is basically like autopilot in a plane, you know. Once you turn it on, first you got to know where you want to go. And once you figure out exactly where you want to go, you set your brain for that actual destination. And if you start to, you know, get off of that path towards where you want to go, your brain automatically pushes you back there. But there's a lot of different things in between that that you have to do in order to really build that journey. But let's talk about the next part of this um podcast is why failure is the best teacher. And I think this is important because you know, failure really forces awareness. You know, you know, you see what's not working, as I said. If you see different things that are not working, you tend to actually, you know, reprogram those. You know, failure really exposes the truths of who you are. Talk about your habits, your disciplines, your mindsets. You know, for the this past year, I really and this is coming from someone who is a mindset coach. This is coming from someone who has a business built around mindset and building a discipline. I am consistently changing up my habits, my disciplines, and my mindset. Like I um maybe about two weeks ago, I determined and told myself, like, hey, we're getting up at 5 a.m. now, and I'm waking up even before 5 a.m. to set the habit of reading my Bible every morning, you know, really, you know, spending the time with God, reading a chapter, praying, um, even journaling now, and to where and also visualizing, and and this is important. I didn't do this, and this was really a turn-up point for me because now I see that this is important for someone who is a husband who has four of the minds to help, you know, cater to and really build. So if you're a husband, if you're a mother, wake up early. You know, wake up early and figure out what how to really plan your day, figure out exactly what you should be doing. But the biggest thing is that the failure is going to help create better habits, better disciplines, and better mindsets. And failure is gonna really help to create an adjustment and improvement for your life. If you want an adjustment and an improvement for your life, you can't fix what you don't see. So if you can get up early, you can start to like really sit back and say, okay, I need to fix my eating habits here. I need to fix my workout here. I have this coming up today, so let's figure out exactly how to map this out. It's gonna help reinforce that failure reveals and success hides. Yes, success is you know the outcome, but the failure is what is going to reveal how you get to the actual success. Success is there, I promise you, it's going to be there. I've succeeded in a lot and I've failed in a lot. But the only reason why I have succeeded in a lot is because I've failed over and over. And if you're a man or if you're a woman and you're saying, Man, I've never failed, again, figure out what you have to do in order to fail. Because the fail, the faster you fall, the faster you fail, that is when you're going to become what you want to become. Your skin gets tougher, you mentally get tougher, you can take a lot more damage. But remember this quote is that you need to fail, but when you fail, fail forward. Don't fall back. If you fall back, just get up. But always try to fall forward. That way you can always get up and you can keep looking ahead. Don't look backwards to where you were. You know, don't stop in the middle of your journey. You know, stop at the end. Don't stop in the middle when it seems hard, you know. You don't stop in the fire. You keep running through fire. You keep going through when, you know, life gets hard. You know, just think about, as I said, like all these individuals, like like Michael Jordan. You know, I'm talking about a lot about basketball, but you know, cut from a team, became elite, the greatest basketball player, most people might say. I uh beg to differ because I really love LeBron James. But just so many people you can really think about who have failed in real-world experiences, man. I um I remember being a kid in like middle school and I barely could read, man. I was like a horrible reader, right? But now I just think about I was thinking about this today. I'm like, man, I could read a whole book in a week. You know, I could read a whole book in, you know, a couple days if I really wanted to, depending on the size of the book. I ain't gonna cap to you. But I'm just thinking about some of the different failures, man. I used to always quit. Like I remember growing up with my kid, my uh sisters. We used to play like Monopoly, used to play like small games, and I used to never win. Like they used to kick my ass in these games, right? And I'm just thinking now, like, shit, I don't quit anything. It ain't nothing I'd quit. You know, I'd have I've been through college, I've been through, you know, um graduate programs, been through high school, and now I'm pursuing a PhD. Like, what? The kid that used to quit, the kid that used to give up, the kid that used to always just, you know, find a way out of things. It's not a way the man that finds the way in. Find a way in. Find a way in. How do you find a way in? Persistently knocking at that door. Eventually it's gonna open for you. It really is. But failure, it didn't stop me. It didn't stop all those people who you see as successful. It refined them. It refined me. And when you find that refinement, man, it is just a glorious time. It's a glorious, glorious time. So let's talk about the the other part to this podcast, which is why success really teaches you less. And this is kind of crazy because most people think that you know, winning a championship is don't teach you a lot. Nah. It's the how many times that you pursue that championship until you got there. You know? So this is the bold claim I really want to make. And some people may not agree with this, but I'm okay with that. I'm always cool with people not agreeing with me because what? Who am I? I am not the source of the truth in the matter, but this is something that I believe, and that success can really slow your growth because a lot of people get to the mountaintop and they think that ah, I've did it, I've got to the mountain of whatever, whatever. I got to the top of Mount Rainier. Yeah, what you're successful there, but there's a Mount Everest on the other side of the world. You think you've been to the mountaintop, you think you've been to the highest point on earth. Nah, bruh, you just scratching the surface. Success can really slow your growth. And what I really am what I really mean here is that winning is going to hide your weakness. You really stop analyzing, you stop believing that there's no further that you can really grow until somebody comes past you and you just and they run past you. Speaking of running, man, you know, a lot of people didn't believe that you can run a marathon in two hours. But get what somebody just ran a marathon in less than two hours, man. Is that something I can do? Hell no, hell no. But somebody ran a marathon in less than two hours. They ran a mile at four minutes and 39 seconds. Yes, it is someone from Africa if you're thinking that right now. Yes, it is someone who is probably 10 pounds, soaking wet. But it doesn't matter the size of the man, it's the size of the heart, it's the size of the mind, it's what you believe that you can do. And I'm pretty sure he failed over and over and over again. But he did it, he accomplished it, and now his name will be written in history. Like this is the thing that if you want to become legendary, you need to analyze what you're doing right now, what you want to be, and what you want to become. I want to become legendary, and that's why I'm up at 5 a.m. talking on a microphone in a cold garage while the rest of my family asleep. Because one day they're gonna hear this and they're gonna say, Man, my dad was up early that early. Yes, I'm up that early. One is because I gotta feed y'all ass. But at the second point, is that I want to help other individuals become legendary. And if they hear this, then they'll know that this is what it takes. I got a big goal in mind. That's to become one of the greatest speakers, international speakers, as I look at this map of the world and all the different color continents and all the different states and all the different small cities. I'm here in Merino Valley, California. You know, on this day, but who knows where I'll be a year, two years from now, as I continue to knock at that wall, as I continue to push at that door, pick that lock. Where's the lock? The lock is in your brain, the lock is out there. So you gotta stop analyzing, right? You gotta stop being in survivor mode. And people, like they say, they get to the top and they think that that's the furthest they can go. But facts, this is really the big thing. Like people get fast money, right? And they they build a weak foundation on how to keep that, and then it collapses. You know, fast success is gonna equal a fast foundation and collapse. I was listening to um to Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell from the church 2819. Yes, I consider myself one of the digital disciples, but he was just talking about how he was ministering at a smaller church, I can't remember where it was, it might have even been in Atlanta for like 10 years. But all of a sudden, people think that he got, you know, overnight success. Where, yeah, the successes might have really blown up here within the last year or two or three. But what about in the dark when people seen people didn't see him working when he was ministering and breaking down a church and having a belief and having a faith to where he is now? His foundation is strong. He didn't get success overnight. My foundation is strong right now, right? Because I've been talking and speaking on YouTube for years. I've been talking to crowds and building my name up for years. My success is not overnight. And people come back and they'll listen to this podcast in a couple years and they'll be like, damn, yeah, he really has been doing this for a while. That's why he's so great on the stage. That's why he's so great. That's why he's traveling all over the world. Because he was up speaking, he was building his foundation. Success can make you comfortable, man. And failure is gonna really force you to improve. I'm improving because I haven't reached my mountaintop yet. And even when I get there, I'll remember that there's a lot more that I can go. Like, hell, let's think of talking about LeBron. Like, this dude is 42, he's accomplished everything. But he knows that his mountaintop can continue to grow. He knows that he can continue to improve, man. His failure of not getting to the quest of a I don't even know how many championships he won, probably more than Jordan. And his failure has taught him the different ways to improve. Success can make you comfortable. Don't get comfortable. A boxer, another boxer quote, I'm hearing y'all with quote after quotes. So I'm hoping y'all join this. But a boxer, you know, a boxer quote that I heard, he basically said, like, man, look, it's hard for a champion to get up after sleeping in silk sheets. You win all these championships, you get all these millions of dollars. It's hard to roll out of bed and it's cold. You gotta go and work out and build your muscle and tear them down and go get punched in the face. It's tough. It's tough, man. But so how failure can really compound it to success, man. So every failure, man, as I said before, is gonna equal data. It's gonna equal data. As I said before. So if you fail once, it's the lesson. If you fail again, it's another lesson. As you compound that, you start to see the different patterns that you have to go into. As you start to see the patterns, as I said before in the quote with the mat the maze, that pattern, bro, is going to be a way for you to become and understand the way that you have to go. But it all turns out to be mastery. You can fail a thousand times, but guess what? You know a thousand other ways that you need to go, and maybe a thousand more to go, and that's when you start to master who you are. It's like investing. Small lessons they stack up over time. Start investing, you'll see that small investments over the time is going to help you to build, it's gonna help you to build. So you're not failing, dog. You're not failing at all. You're you're not failing, man. I I really need you to hear this. When you fail, you are just learning. It's learning on a scale. The best teacher is going to be your failure. So, this is how you need to start to use your failure. And this is the action framework that I put together for you today. Step one is that you attract the lesson. What went wrong? What pattern did you have to do? If you were a speaker, or if you are, I don't know, what you want to say, if you are whatever, whatever area you're in, right? You have to attract the lesson, extract the lesson. What went wrong? The second step is that you have to remove the emotion from it. Your failure is not your identity, it is you becoming who you want to be. And then three is that you have to apply it quickly. Speed matters, like they always say, is that success love speed. You have to just keep going, you have to build upon it, you have to build that that um that overall momentum. You have to take the momentum with you. Then the next step is that you have to really track your failures because how are you going to know which direction you go in? You know, unless you just keep hitting your head, keep hitting your head. You gotta journal, you gotta really reflect on those different failures. When I was trading for a while, a lot of the things that I I knew I should not be doing the next day, I used to journal and I used to reflect, like, okay, I know that is not the right step. I've seen this time and time again. And then five, you have to stay consistent. Quitting is the only real failure, as I said. It is the only real failure. And those are different, those are just five ways that I really want to help you to understand that life is all about situations, fail, lesson, and grow. It's a situation you're in, you may fail, you have to learn a lesson, and you have to grow. But and I'll take this as another added step is that discipline is greater than motivation, consistency is greater than intensity, and your growth is always going to require discomfort. So the amount of discomfort that you're in is going to determine how far you grow, it is gonna always determine how you grow. Also, remember that your attitude is going to determine your aptitude, and your aptitude is gonna determine your altitude. Oh, that's a good one, man. I read that in a book. So, yeah, man, there's a lot of great things that I could tell you, and um, there's a lot of great things that I always want to talk to y'all about, and who you are today was really built through your failures. Look back at your life, look how far you've come, look how far you just slow down and just just make an impact on your thoughts right now. Is that who you are today was really built on your failures? Do you consider yourself as a failure today? Look back at what you went through, and that will tell you where you are. Do you consider yourself successful? Look back and you'll see how far you've come. I failed numerous, numerous, numerous things in my life, and that is why I'm sitting in this seat on this mic and telling you that you have to fail and be okay with failure, be okay with the embarrassment because one day your failures will look like success. Success is just failure compounded. So, I do love y'all, I appreciate y'all, and I always want to continue to inspire y'all. And if you want to learn more, if you want to hear more, make sure y'all subscribe to this podcast. More importantly, go subscribe to YouTube, watch the videos. You know, I love to talk to y'all on there, and I'm definitely gonna do a video on this. And um, yeah, go to terrencefagan.com if you want to see more about me, hear about me, be coached by me. I would love to really, you know, hear what y'all think about these podcasts, man. So, from my house to yours, from my voice to your ears, I appreciate y'all listening. Continue to awaken your best. Let's go, baby.