When It Doesn’t Go As Planned: Navigating Failure, Setbacks & Self-Doubt

Welcome to The In Between Podcast, a show for women navigating the space between where they are and where they want to be.

This is your go-to holistic business podcast where we dive into strategies, mindset, habits, and of course, making a meaningful income so you can live your dream life.

I'm Astrid, a multi-six-figure luxury wedding photographer and a former corporate marketing girly.

And I'm Alexis with 10+ years in tech as a senior brand partnerships manager and business coach. Think of us as your business besties cheering you on as you level up. Let's get into it.

Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The In Between Podcast. This is one of your hosts, Astrid.

And the other half, Alexis.

Welcome back.

We're so excited to have some time with you today, and we're going to be sharing how to come back after a setback, after you experience an aspect of failure, things don't go to plan. How do you reframe it? How do you move forward? And also, how do you recover your self-esteem and aspects of your self-confidence when you experience some aspect of failure? And I know that that can really rock our sense of self. It can really take a ding to our ego, to our sense of identity. There's so many things that This can impact. And so we thought, why not talk about this on the pod? This is a little bit more of a mindset episode, but we will be bringing in experiences from our own careers and our own businesses and really exposing some of the things that haven't worked for us or, you know, just things that have happened to us that we needed to learn from. And I'm excited for this. I think this will be a little bit more vulnerable, but I think these are the episodes that really make us feel super connected to you as you're listening and hopefully help you if you're experiencing this right now in your own life or business or career. So with that, we're going to share some quick life updates, share our in-betweens, and then we'll get into our failures.

Can't wait. Truly, truly.

Yeah.

I think just so excited for this because I know both of us are very active on social media. And some of these specific failures I haven't made a post about or share on stories. And some people follow our journey and I think comparison can come so easily. And at the same time, it's a true glimpse into, well, you're not seeing all the other things that we have tried and that have really grown us. And I'm so grateful for it. We've both been in this space for 10 years, and I think 10 years in, I'm grateful for those because each of those taught me something. While when they were happening, or maybe early on in my career, I'm like, I'm not meant for this, I'm out, I'm not grateful. Yeah, I'm not grateful. So I am looking forward to that. But yeah, on life updates, I am so excited. So today is Friday when we're recording this, and I am hosting my family this weekend for like a very chill hangout. Um, and my brother has been making like— he has a sourdough starter and he's been doing all kinds of things sourdough. So we're doing a DIY pizza day with like his sourdough.

Fun.

It's like a whole process. Like he is coming down on Friday to do something that it needs to do to sit overnight, that it can't like leave the fridge. And then we're all getting together at like noon and we won't cook them and make them till like 7 because it has to like sit again. So I am just excited. I set a goal for myself that I really wanted to not overthink hosting, not overthink having my family over. I just have a really big family. And so sometimes hosting 15 people does feel very overwhelming. But my coach has helped me work through ways that we can simplify that. Like, I don't have to cook for everyone. We can all pitch in. We can all do DIY things. So It feels really, really good. Been really heavy on the family time lately. And speaking of family time, last weekend got to hang out with my boyfriend's dad's side of the family, which was really fun. Got to see like a whole other side of them. We don't get to see them as often. But yeah, it was just— it's wild to see like where your person comes from and like get to see like a whole other insight into like their history. So we had a great time. We literally just played Sequence for like— oh no, sorry, we played Phase 10. We played Phase 10 for like hours and it was so fun. Um, and what else? I threw my back out again, so we're struggling through that. It was a lot of pain, but healing and growing through it. And yeah, just, just really gearing up for busy season really kickstarts in like a week or so.

Mm-hmm.

And I am I am fully embracing it. I'm taking on all the things because I'll be off work for like a month. And yeah, I'm just going to front load it and go for it. So soaking in the last few days of just peaceful rest.

What do you mean by off work for a month? You mean you are working for a month and you're away from home?

Well, yeah, in Europe I technically have just 2 shoots. So the rest of the time in between, I'll be on my laptop for a part of it, but for The majority, I'm going to like just soak it all in and be in the space. So, um, yeah, so I just won't be able to like get a shoot with income generating things during a month.

Oh yeah. This isn't like May and June. I thought you meant like this month, like you're taking it. I was like, where are you going?

Oh no.

What do I not know?

Oh wait, big life update. Oh my gosh. I upgraded my film camera. And I don't know if I shared this in the last podcast or not, but anyway, it comes in next week and I am going full, full into it. Like, I feel so passionate about it and it's just exciting to have like a new thing that I'm excited for.

Yeah, it's always fun to like experiment and play within your craft. Like, and I'm excited to see, because the film that you had developed from France was so beautiful. I'm like, how do I get these prints in my house?

Oh, I'll send them to you.

Yeah, please send them to me. But in general, like, I'm excited to see you continue to explore that on the wedding side as well for your clients. So love that. And love that you're spending time with your family. Lots of wholesome moments. Um, and you are a card game girly. You love games.

I do. It's my favorite way to bond with people.

I love it. Um, okay. What's going on in my world right now? So, ooh, okay. I am I am in the thick of it, and I'm going to be in the thick of it for the next three months. I leave next week, and I'm so excited. I put on my vision board, my manifestation board for the year of being on film sets, being on film sets, being in studios, and there have been so many things that have come my way in the last eight weeks. And I get to be on two different film sets next week. I am helping produce two customer stories of two. Of our top customers for Circle. I'm flying to San Diego and get to spend the day with Pat Flynn and his CEO Caleb. We rented out a really cool studio and I get to be kind of the producer behind the scenes, which I've never done before. And I'm really excited for that. And then after that, we're going to fly from San Diego to Denver to interview Raina, who is the community manager for a really popular community called Good Inside. It's a parenting community. And these are like 2 of our biggest customers on Circle and that have just been with us for a long time and have like a 4 or 5-year story to tell. So I'm really excited to produce those, work with the film crew. We have like a film assistant coming in from San Diego to help our video producer as well as Denver. So I'm just going to learn a lot. And this is definitely outside the scope of my job. And I know this is like a little bit of a life update, but also when you get asked to do things at work that are outside of your job description and it's something that you really want to do, don't fuss. Like, don't like overthink it. Like, oh well, I don't really know how to do this. I've never done this before. Or that's not really like what I was hired to do.

Who cares?

Like the fact that you are being trusted with a project that might be adjacent to your skillset, even if you haven't done it before. I just, I'm so excited for this. So that's next week. And then lots of exciting things that I can't wait to tell you about at some point, um, over the next couple of months. So that's what's really top of mind for me, getting ready for that project. And when I'm there and shooting and filming for 4 days, I'm not working. Like I'm working, but I'm not working on all the other projects that have to get done. So just managing that. Um, but really excited for the weekend ahead. We're having, um, 2 back-to-back nights out with different friends. We're doing 2 different like double date nights at— one is like a clubby restaurant, kind of similar to Mila Fire Dancers, and like it's called Toca Madera in Houston.

Oh my God, we need to go.

No, literally, I'm so excited. It's my first time going. It's kind of been like a Houston hotspot for the last 6 to 8 months. Um, so finally going with our friends, and then we're treating our other friends. They watched Piper for 7 days while Matt was in London and I was in Spain for work. And we're like, we're treating you to our favorite sushi spot. So we're going to fancy sushi with our best friends and treating them because they watched our daughter for 7 days. So that's what's up in my world right now.

Oh my gosh. I just admire you so much. You're like my little celebrity. I seriously love your life and just getting to see you thrive in a career that you love, that brings out your creative side, not just creative strategy, like from a laptop, but that now you get to step in, be in front of the camera. And you're so right. Like taking those opportunities even outside of your career. I feel like now 10 years of, you've always been producing content and being in front of the camera and creating things for campaigns. For fun. And now you have this opportunity granted to you where it's like that skill set is just ready to tap into, that you can truly storytell and bring that together. So I love that. 10 out of 10 for everything on your vision board coming true this year.

Yeah, I, I believe it. I'm so excited. I haven't started my sourdough journey, but I've decided that that's a fall— that's a fall thing. Like, that's a Q3, Q4. We ain't got time to be feeding our starter. I can't even think about that.

It's literally another child. Like I said, my brother's doing it and it's a lot.

Yeah, I'm not in my sourdough era right now, but I'll let you know when I get there. Okay, in-betweens. Every episode, as this is called the In Between Podcast, we always share what we're in between every week because we believe that we're always in the middle of something. So for you, what are you in between right now?

Great question, Alexis.

I was not expecting this. Who knew? We never do this.

I never knew that. Um, okay, so I am in between just like this very organic way of coming up with new services that I want to offer to my clients and just a very innovative thing and kind of feeding off of the film side of things. I just have been researching it for a year, and in true Astrid fashion, I just like take a really long time to pull the trigger, but when I do, I'm like all in. This happened with my team. I like researched, learned everything for a whole year, and I was like, okay, 1,000%, now I'm in. And then we launched it. And so yeah, so this past year was more like experimenting with film, experimenting with how would this fit into my business. Is it just a trendy thing, or like do I actually feel passionate about it? And I've taken some courses too where it's like pretty much any luxury photographer, film is a must. And so I feel like both of my worlds are colliding where in the past month I've had a lot of, like 70% of the inquiries were asking for film as an add-on for their package and photography. And I, for fun, posted the photos that I had from last trip on social media and got great response on it. And I was like, I am sleeping on this. So Pulled the trigger and I just feel really in alignment with it. So I feel also like back to square one of developing a new service and then like, how do we market it? How do we price it? And watching YouTube videos on like, how does all of this work in the film world? And I'm so excited. It doesn't feel intimidating. It doesn't feel heavy or like I'm pushing it, but I also think it's going to be a really great new source of income for the business that I didn't expect. And yeah, and I just just feel really creative. Like, I really— besides wedding days, like, I am hoping to do some full branding campaigns on film. Uh, and I saw like this one like for Levi's that was all shot on fit— excuse me, on film. And so yeah, so I'm hoping to like some of my branding clients really pitch this vibe to them and be able to experiment with that. So yeah, it feels I don't know. I just like, I have this, I'm in between just like embracing it. And at the same time, like the jitters of launching something new, the pressure too of now someone's paying me for this film that if it doesn't develop right, then it's on me. And like, it's not the same as controlling a digital file where I have it recording to like 3 things at once and backups and all that good stuff. So just learning a new side of the business, but I'm excited for the growth with it. And specifically, like, the branding side really excites me with the film as well.

I can't wait to see you develop this skill. Like, you already have it, but the confidence that you'll feel at doing it over and over and over again, like, through the reps— I can't wait to see, like, your first entire brand campaign. For a company all shot on film. Like, how cool would that be?

I would love that. I would love that. So yeah, I feel like a new goal for me is I want to be able to, by the end of the year, say like I'm a film photographer and just really own it. So I'm in my film era and that's what I'm currently in between. What are you currently in between?

Ooh, I've gone back and forth on whether I want to talk about this on the podcast, but I do think I'm ready to talk about it. Mostly like my mental health over the last six to eight weeks. I think just working through feeling enough and like truly being happy and present in my life. And there's a part of me that's annoyed that I feel this way because. So much of my life is so beautiful and privileged and like rich with opportunity, and like yeah, I just feel really grateful. And then on the other side of the coin, my brain is like you don't deserve this. You're like the pressure of like losing it, the pressure of not doing enough. It's been. Really heavy lately. That's been in the back of my mind for the last, yeah, almost 2 months, I would say. And this came up in therapy with Matthew and I as well, just the happiness. And not that happiness is like— happiness is fleeting. I know that that's something that is inconsistent. But let's just say the sense of security in myself, in my life. Has really ebbed and flowed over the last couple of months. And I'm learning that if I don't find a way to feel present in my life, all of these good things that happen to me, they feel numb. Like it's like, oh, okay. And it's not that I'm not grateful for them, but it's like because I sit And overthink and have a sense of self-doubt that is just on a loop in my head all the time. When things happen, it's like, oh, well, that's just like not even— like, you probably don't deserve that. Or I don't even know if I'm articulating myself very well right now, but I am currently like learning how to truly embrace every moment and be just okay, like a sense of self-acceptance and that I am enough and that while I'm always learning and growing, this constant narrative in the back of my head that's like, you're not doing enough, you're not doing enough, like you should be doing more, is exhausting. And it's really taken its toll on my mental health. Which is interesting because I don't feel like you see a lot of that on social media. I haven't been really transparent about it because it just feels very— it also feels like, again, I'm annoyed that I have the problem because there's so many good things in my life that me sitting and talking and complaining about, oh, I just don't feel like I'm enough. It's like, okay, you just got this amazing opportunity or you just won this amazing work trip. Like it doesn't feel. Does that make sense? It just like feels kind of a little tone deaf. So I've just been working through that, and again, don't know if I articulated myself very well, but it's it's been interesting to like be at this place in my career and at this place in my life, and have that like. darkness, I guess, that persists in my head. So just working through like letting the light shine in and being like truly secure and not second-guessing everything.

Thank you so much for sharing, love. I know that that is hard and it's such a private thing too, where it's like you're, you're navigating, you're in the messy middle of it and I also want to acknowledge that that is part of mental health where sometimes it just feels like it doesn't make sense. Sometimes we expect mental health to be down when something has happened to us. We've lost our job, we're going through a fight with our partner or whatever that might look like. But when everything around us is great and we still feel those things, that is hard to have compassion and accept. And and navigate, right? Because there's not a situation to fix.

Yeah.

And so I'm proud of you for making space for it. And I just want to validate your feelings right now and base— and just acknowledge that you don't need to have something going wrong in your life for your mental health to be in a way, quote unquote, acceptable, for it to not be okay. It's Okay, if everything's wonderful and your mental health is, is not. And, and that's just part of being humans. That's part of having so many complex emotions and being a woman. There's like so many different factors. And so I'm proud of you for how you're navigating this, how you're seeking therapy, how you're in— yeah, how you navigate things. I trust completely that you're gonna be able to walk through this confidently, and I'm here for you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I'm glad that we have this space to verbalize it. And if anybody else is out there, life feels really good and you have all the things that you've ever wanted, you're like, what's wrong with my brain? You are not alone and there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your brain. I think it's just learning more about myself, learning more about what I really want, and just listening to myself and being more— Present in the moment is really what I'm in pursuit of right now. So thanks for letting me share. I love you. Love this. Love that we get to do this. Let's talk about learning from failures and setbacks.

With that in mind, yes. Oh my gosh. Well, and yeah, I love how transparent we can be in this podcast. And I'm looking forward to this conversation. Whenever you first brought up this topic, I was like, well, this feels a little bit prickly, but I do feel like it's important to give a full glimpse of what our journeys have looked like and be able to share just a few of the failures that we have had, how we've navigated it. And to be honest, this kind of felt like a journaling exercise for me because I think My brain blocks off pain so much that at first, whenever I was like, what are my top failures? Nothing came to mind, even though I of course knew that there has been some failures and I had to dig through. So a caveat of this has been just learning that reflecting back on our past and our journey and our wins, as much as what we've conquered, is so important. And so I am looking forward to sharing my journey. So do you want to kick us off?

I can.

Yeah.

Is that your preference? You're like, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

I'll go first.

I did put mine in chronological order as well just because that felt like the most natural. But when I really sat and thought about some of my biggest setbacks, failures, things I've quit, things I had to let go of because they weren't working, the first one that comes to mind was in my early 20s. I had a company called AT Avenue, and it was a clothing company. I started it in between my sophomore and junior year of college. And I've always been someone that wanted to apply what I was learning. And so I was in business school in college, and I was like, okay, I need to do something with this. In college, I had a lot of free time. I mean, usually you do. And so I had free time. I was like, well, I'm not going to get a job. I should start a business, and so I started a business, and I ended up doing trunk shows in women's homes. And very similar to like Pampered Chef or any sort of like home parties, I used that same model, but it wasn't a franchise; it was just me and my business. And I would go into people's homes and set up a little store in their living room, and it was so much fun. Like I I had a blast. I learned so much, and. I did it for 2 years, obviously junior and senior year of high— of college. And then I had this kind of crossroads of I had started a blog. I had actually built out an e-commerce store for the, for the business because I knew that if I wanted it to grow, I needed to get online. I needed to get on Shopify. Like I couldn't rely on in-person parties forever because also I was only one person. And in order for me to scale, I was like, I need to— people need to be able to buy from me anytime, not just when I host a party. And my second year of business, I ended up doing like just shy of $100,000 in revenue. And I was like, okay, this is something. Like, this is a side hustle I'm doing as a college student. This could really turn into something much bigger. I was doing festivals and things like that and growing the brand kind of locally in the Midwest in Illinois. And I remember touring— I don't know if you and I have talked about this, but I remember touring physical locations in my hometown area to actually have a brick-and-mortar store for AT Avenue. Like, I wanted to potentially grow it into a business, franchise it. And at that time— I'm sharing my age here— but the red dress boutique was a really big boutique at the time.

Yes.

And like massive e-commerce. They were on all the Facebook ads. And that was kind of the vision of like, okay, this is someone who started small and now literally has a warehouse and has 30 employees and is doing, you know, crazy amounts of revenue every single month from her e-commerce business. And so I thought maybe that was what I wanted to do. Ended up touring some brick and mortar places. And ultimately decided that I wanted to try to move to Nashville, have a full-time job in marketing, and keep AT Avenue on the side and no longer rely on in-person, um, in-person shows, but only rely on e-commerce. And essentially I moved to Nashville, 6 months in, I'm like, wow, okay, I have all this inventory. I'm not really selling it. I'm not promoting it very well either. Like, to be very transparent, I just kind of slowly started to shift my attention to my career and away from the business endeavor and ultimately decided to close it 6 months after I moved to Nashville. So I ran the business for about 2 and a half years. And the decision to do that was kind of like, okay, I had to check my ego because when you close anything or quit anything, it publicly can feel like a failure. Like publicly it's like, oh, it didn't work for her. And something that was important for me in that experience at 22 was to own the narrative of letting it go. And so the way that I positioned it, and it was also the truth, was like, hey, my career is going great. I'm loving Nashville. I'm learning so much. I'm getting all these opportunities. And because of that, I don't have the time or the interest anymore in running this boutique.

Mm-hmm.

And instead of like, oh, it didn't work. Like, I think a lot of times how we Mentally, like narrative and build a story around failure or what? Because I you could look at it and say you failed. You moved to Nashville. You tried to keep up with the e-commerce. It didn't work for XYZ reason. It was a failure. But to me, I had to position it as I am moving forward with something that better aligns with the career I want to build, the life I want to build, with the skills I wanted to build as well. And so I wanted to let. AT Avenue go. I ended up selling off the existing portion of my inventory. So I didn't go into any debt. That was a big thing with that business is I was debt-free the whole, almost the whole time. I borrowed $2,000 from my grandma to fund my initial investment in the actual clothes because I needed to have inventory. And I paid her back within 60 days. And then I was debt-free the whole time. And so that was another aspect that made it really easy for me to to sell off the existing inventory, close the business, is I didn't feel like that financial pressure on the business. But that was my first experience with kind of public failure. The brand had built a following in our area. People were really passionate and super supportive. And then obviously I decided to quit. And so I thought that it was important for me to own the story. And I'm glad I did. I'm glad I made the decision. I don't regret it at all, but it definitely was something I had to work on my ego and realize that this was for the betterment of my career and for the pursuit of the vision of what I wanted. And it just didn't fit anymore. And so I had to let it go. So that's my first career business example of like, oh, this isn't going to work anymore.

Thank you for sharing that. I feel so honored, which is crazy to think about, but I was actually here whenever you were selling clothes for AT Avenue and I bought a few things from you as well. And I was like, I love what she has. It was very different too because I was moving from Miami. I felt like I couldn't really shop in the area for what I was looking for. And when somebody told me about your brand, that was my first encounter with who you were. They're like, oh, I think you would like this brand, like AT Avenue's clothes. And so I remember whenever you shut down AT Avenue, and I just want to acknowledge how well you managed that, especially as, you know, early 20s, because I remember from a consumer perspective, I didn't know you well. I didn't know all the behind the scenes. I didn't know about the e-commerce, like, not working out. But, and also like social media was so in its early stages. Like I think now we're used to more of the scripted like wording and all that stuff, but you managed that so well that I remember feeling after I read your post, like, I can't wait to follow her journey. Like, awesome. Like, I wonder what's next. Like you really did such a great job with that where it put me on my toes and I was like, ooh, she's building something else and it's something that's coming. And it did. Like your blogging and your traveling And everything really kicked off, and that was so fun to follow. And it was just a different way to present that. And I think that's also a powerful example of how to not let everything that we think come through on the outside, because not everyone needs to know all the little details about the business. But how can you control the narrative to still continue to still keep? what was most important about it, which was like the community aspect. Like these people really loved you for you and what you sold was secondary to who you were as a brand. And so yeah, I applaud you so much for that. I think that was an insane level of maturity to have an awareness, to have like early 20s shutting down your first baby, like your first business, which is very vulnerable as well.

Yeah. Thank you so much. That means a lot. And I still have people that follow me and that are in my Instagram community that have been with me since then. And like, it's all about the journey that you take your audience and your community on. And, you know, some of those things I went through personally, they didn't— they weren't as necessary at that moment in the story. But now I get to talk about it from this angle where I'm like, yeah, 9 years ago I was a mess, but it's okay. So, uh, what about you?

All right, so my first one, I've never shared this before, but I once lost a whole session, like the photos. It's only happened once to me in my whole career, but it has happened and I was devastated. So I shot this family session. Thank God they were past clients. Like, this was like my 4th year working with them, and thank God it wasn't a wedding or anything crazy, but Um, I was in the thick of like busy season and I was running low on memory cards. So normally I will shoot a session and have, I have 2 memory cards that go into the same camera. So like as it's recording, if one memory card were to fail, which it did, it's still recording to the second one. Well, my main ones were covered with wedding stuff. So I was like, oh, it's fine. Like it's just a family session. Like I do these backup things all the time. Nothing happens. And this is your reminder to knock on wood because it did happen. And so I shot the session and then the memory card itself corrupted. So I was able to recover maybe like 5 photos from it, but that was about it. And then I ran— I paid so much money to have people try to recover the memory card thing and download softwares that I could try to recover all the stuff on it and it just did not. And after 24 hours of doing all the things and not sleeping and I felt like throwing up, I was like, okay, I'm going to have to own this. I'm going to have to own the fact that I can't recover these images. And even though it wasn't a wedding day, it was of course still just as important. This family coordinated all the schedules and got ready and did the hair, did the makeup, and like did all the things that they needed to do to make the session successful. And I just wasted their time. And so I felt very unprofessional and I was like, okay, I messaged her, I explained what happened. I was like, I'm so sorry. Like I normally record to 2, I didn't this time. And then the memory card failed me. It wasn't lack of organization, but it was lack of backup. And so she was like, oh, she was so gracious about it. And she was like, I'm just glad it happened with me because I'm so laid back and that it didn't happen with somebody else that they could have left a really bad review on my business. They could have blasted me on socials. And so we reshot the session and it all went well, but it was such a lesson learned to never ease up on those. very important systems in your business to back up your work and to have multiple ways of documenting things. And yeah, it was a hard, hard lesson. So I've only lost photos once and hopefully never, ever again.

That's also a lesson that you really only want to experience one time.

No, I felt so sick. Yeah, so, so sick. I could not imagine if— I mean, there's photographers that I've heard have lost images multiple times. I'm like, how does that happen?

Well, I'm proud of you for owning it, talking to the person, reshooting it. It's something that you made the best of a very uncomfortable situation.

Yes, absolutely. And it's like the not so glamorous side of photography. I was actually just thinking about this yesterday that I need to buy new memory cards and not use some of the old ones that I have too. I'm like, before the season starts, I need to make an order. And it's just like the, the nitty gritty things that are not fun. And you have to keep track of how much usage you have on a memory card and all that stuff. But we live, we learn. And also I just want to say, like, I think whenever you consistently overdeliver, which I did do with that client for the previous sessions, I feel like it also allowed for that grace in a moment where I really, really needed it. And yeah, I just feel like it all just kind of comes back to you. If you're stingy and you're like, oh, you only get 50 photos and you only send them 50 photos, then they're going to be strict about it too whenever your time comes around.

Yeah, great point. Okay, my next one I will share kind of rapid fire because we got to pick it up. I'm like, oh my gosh, I look down and I'm like, We're yapping. Okay. So my next one is the time I quit my full-time job at ConvertKit to launch a group coaching business. I was so excited. I had built a following online. I felt like I had this email list and surely the first thing I launch after I quit my job is going to be so successful. People are like, and it's just going to be like exactly what people want. I launched a group coaching program that was meant to be 4 or 6 weeks long, 4 weeks long, and only one person bought. And so it's really difficult to have a group coaching experience with one person, one person being Astrid. I love you for that. And that actually kickstarted our friendship. And so it all happened for a reason, but it was a big lesson for me in understanding who I'm trying to serve and using language and messaging and building real content and tools and resources based on what they want. And it was a great lesson for me as my first time kind of launching a content coaching business was I didn't really ask what people wanted. I assumed. And I was building something based on like, this is what I would want and here's how I would structure it. And I didn't really open up the feedback loops enough. I think it's like a balance between getting too much feedback and then you end up creating something that you aren't as passionate about. But I did not like ask my audience. I was like, I'm doing this. I was all in on it. I marketed the hell out of it. I sold, I went live on Instagram, like I was doing the most and ended up getting one sale. And it was a big lesson of like, okay, I'm not using clear enough language. I'm not creating something that people really want. There was a lot of reasons and lessons from that. And at the same time, it also shifted me away from group coaching and into one-on-one coaching, which has actually been the core business model of my side business now. And I love it. And so it all ended up working out. And at the same time, it was an important lesson for me to learn. that people don't buy things that they're confused about. And if you are launching something and you do have an audience and no one's buying, you need to start having conversations with, with your audience and your community on what it is that they really want and use that language to describe what you're building. There's a lot of ways to launch something, but I did not do a very good job on that and my ego took the biggest hit, but it all worked out for the best.

Well, I thought you did a great job at it.

I was like, I'm going to pivot this from— I was like, actually, Astrid, this was going to be a group experience, but I'm just going to focus totally on you.

I was pumped. I was like, wow, I get one-on-one experience. This is amazing. And honestly, I was going through it at the time too. So that was the best way that I could have experienced that. And also props to you for pivoting. I think sometimes, at least personally, when I failed in certain launches before, It takes such a hit to my ego and I'm like, I'm not talented. No one wants what I'm here to offer. And I just hang up the towel in that area. And I'm proud of you for pushing through and being like, this is what I can own, but this is what is great. The product is amazing. I am a great coach, so I'm just going to pivot the service. And I think that's a big lesson for any entrepreneur is don't hang up the towel, try different things. Yeah. On my end, I'm trying to think which next failure I want to share. Actually, on that same vein, I had a launch with another one of my best friends. So it's called Creators Collective. And we did the most. We spent so much time recording, defining the course, recording the videos. And it was all about bridging the gap between your mental health and like the personal coaching side of things with the business side. And so it was just like very deep, deep, deep topics that, um, she's so knowledgeable in, but then bringing in some very tangible things from the business. And so I think like some of our messaging did not work out. We, we did like this whole launch and we had quite a few people sign up for the waitlist. We had you know, probably 15 or so on the waitlist, but then when it came time to purchasing, we struggled so much with like getting those purchases through.

Mm-hmm.

And so some big lessons from that was one, like sometimes we spend so much time developing the product that it also does require so much time on the marketing side of it. And we didn't spend enough time truly communicating what it is that you're getting. Um, and I would say it was just more the reps of the marketing rather than like the one post. People aren't going to see the one post. So that was a big lesson too. I feel like we could have simplified some of the things and some of the recordings as well. Like I had to fly all the way to Dallas, spend money on a flight, spend money on like food and all of that where we probably could have recorded some of them all virtually. And so that was a financial hit on my business and some of the softwares as well. Um, but I'm so grateful for it because a lot of the lessons that we had there Even the platform, like I've helped now project manage other courses of launching it. And so the skillset of how Kajabi works and how you put all the front end and the back end into it have, has allowed me other income opportunities now. And the lessons from that helped our launch then with like the in-between. And so, yeah, I, I did hang up the towel for like a year. I was like, I can't do any education.

Like.

No one wants to hear from me. No one wants to learn from me. And that was the lie that I kept telling myself is like, I'm just going to stick to photo and no one wants to learn from me. And then, you know, reshifting to it was just the way and maybe not the actual service.

Yeah. So many lessons from that. And I, and, and remember too, like with the waitlist in the launch of the InBetween Mastermind, you're like, okay, here's from my experience. And I think that as we're sharing and the things that we've both learned from them. I— the thing we want to invite you to do is to not view these experiences as failures. Like, they are truly lessons that inform your next action. And so as we can look at it as data and saying like, oh, this didn't work, this worked, this kind of worked, let me tweak it, we can use that to make better decisions. We can launch better products. We can learn How to engage better with our community. We can learn how to manage our own ego and our own mindset. Like there's so many ways to use setbacks and quote unquote failures as fuel. And one of my mentors, Mr. Lindvall, he always used to say, fail fast. Like fail fast. If you're going to fail, like move through it really, really quickly. So that you can get to the other side and start implementing what you've learned and pivot from it versus I failed and I'm going to sit in it for a really long time. I'm going to let it define me. I'm going to let it hold me back. I'm going to let it kind of make me sink down in my little hole and not want to be seen or be visible anymore. And so if you can look at it as like, I'm going to fail, cool. I'm not going to allow that to dictate how I feel about myself or the future of my successes in my business or in my career, it really does shift the way that you see failure and setbacks. So I hope that this episode was helpful for you. And if you're going through a season right now where you're experiencing some of this, send us a DM. We would love to cheer you on. We'd love to, to help you and support you. And, um, I'd even be happy to chat with you personally if this is something that you're experiencing, because I know it can feel very vulnerable and it can feel really lonely as well because we don't really want to talk about what's not working, right? We want to have this aspect of perfection, this aspect of like, no, I'm successful and everything's great. But that's not always the reality. So if there's anything that Astrid and I can do to support you, please let us know. You can message us on Instagram, on the podcast @inbetween.pod, and you can always message me personally @AlexisTeichmiller.

Yes. And you can always message me as well at @astrojohannaphoto. And I just want to leave you guys with an invitation. Maybe you aren't right now experiencing a failure, but if you've experienced any in the past and maybe you've tucked it away in a closet and shoved it in there and you're like, all right, let's move forward. What would it look like to sit with it, to reconcile the story that you have around that failure? And to own that so that you can move forward. And I think that's one of my reflections in some of the failures that I listed today was I tucked some of those away and we can go back and reown that story. So I hope that this episode benefited all of you. We love you so, so much, and we will talk to you next time.