When you are successful, you will fail.

Let’s not fetishize it, deny it, or try to whitewash it. The ghost of failure haunts me everyday. And he doesn’t look anything like the grim reaper. In fact, it’s a she. And she’s hot. She whispers in my ear, she wakes me up at night, she joins me on a morning jog. No matter how high I get: this mistress has her arm around me, seductive, teasing, just waiting for her chance.

Because that bitch knows that the forces of gravity are inevitable. What goes up will eventually come down, always. And she’ll be there for me when it does, ready to smack the shit out of me. So rather than avoid her: prepare for her, accept her, acknowledge her presence like an addict does his addiction.

The success / failure yo-yo is an addiction, and it follows the usual addiction cycle. It’s not one that can be slaked with nicotine patches or nonalcoholic beer. If you’re like me, you’re addicted to wanting to win: to be acknowledged for your ideas, your inventions, and the what you’ve created.

Failure is the necessary hangover of success.