Candice (00:00.11)

We made it friends. It is the last episode of the Power and Purpose podcast before we turn the page on 2025 and enter into a new year together. And in this final episode of this year, I wanted to talk to you about a growth strategy that nobody talks about. Let's get into it. You're here to grow a business, but not just any kind of business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose.

A business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life. I'm Candace Coppola, published author, business coach, and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques

that will help you build your dream business. This is the power in purpose.

Hey there friends, welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast. It's me, your host Candice. Welcome to our very final episode of 2025. We just celebrated our 200th episode last week, and this will be the final episode of our show for this year. We have tackled so many different topics on the Power and Purpose podcast this year, and I thought we would end the year with a concept, with an idea.

with a growth strategy that not enough people talk about. And you know, if somebody's going to talk about it, it's definitely going to be me. And today we're talking about failure. I kind of teased this episode in our 200th episode, our 23 lessons. And I promised that I would bring this topic to you before the year ends. And it might be a little strange to be talking about failure.

Candice (02:01.93)

as we enter into a new year of promise and hope and goals and all good things. But I think in order for you to have an amazing year in 2026, we have to talk about the one thing that people avoid and that you probably are avoiding, and that is failure. So that is the topic of today.

And it doesn't feel as though failure is the gateway or the key to progress and growth, but I promise you that it is. And I've been ruminating on this topic for months now. And it all started with a Peloton workout that I took on my Peloton. If you know me, you know I love my Peloton. And I have just expanded the Peloton family here in our home. We purchased a tread. So now we have the bike.

We have the Peloton Guide and we also have the Tread. This is not sponsored by Peloton whatsoever. But buying a Peloton really changed my life. It made me more active. I started to get in shape and it has blessed me in so many different ways. I love working out. I love my instructors on the Peloton. And one day I took a class by one of my favorite instructors, Adrienne. It was a weightlifting class.

And I really loved the class. loved the formatting of the class. I love him as an instructor. And he said something in the class that really piqued my interest. He talked about finding failure and why that is so important when you are lifting weights for growth. It is a small conversation in a 30 minute class.

And I found myself taking the class again the next week. I like to repeat classes, especially good ones with good programming, good formatting, because there's no reason to complicate anything. If I like something and if I think it's going to work for me, I'm just going to continue to take it over and over. So long story short, I've probably taken this class, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 times at this point. And I now look forward to the section where Adrienne talks about failure.

Candice (04:15.756)

And in this section, we're lifting weights and he's telling us that finding failure is something that we're here to do. We show up to this class to lift heavy weights and to fatigue our muscles to the point where they fail, to the point in which we cannot do another rep. And it's so easy for us to cheat that in class. It's so easy to not go the distance when you're lifting weights.

And to not find failure because it's comfortable to not find failure because it hurts to find failure if I'm being totally honest. And there's something psychological about having your muscle there just absolutely shaking as you are trying to push this dumbbell one more rep where you want to do it, but you also don't want to do it. And he's encouraging us to seek out failure because number one,

That's how we grow muscle is fatigue, failure in your muscle capacity from a physiological standpoint. But he also goes on to say something that I keep coming back to. And that is that we need to find failure and to see what that stimulus feels like. Really, maybe a throwaway line that he threw in class for him, but something that I have been thinking about.

months and months, not just as I seek to find failures so that I can grow my muscles and be strong, but I also sit with this and think about what would happen if more of us sought out failure and the stimulus of failure in our businesses. Would we go farther? Would we achieve more? And would we be better off in our businesses?

I am here to say after months of thinking about this topic, that I think the key to unlocking whatever it is you want for your business in 2026, rest somewhere in finding failure. And so what does that mean? And how can I take a line that has been haunting me from a Peloton class and turn it around in to business? Well,

Candice (06:38.656)

As a recovering perfectionist and as an Enneagram three, the idea of finding failure in a workout class isn't a new concept to me, but finding failure in my life, in my personal life and in my business is absolutely something that I avoid at all costs. And I'm willing to bet that you too avoid failure. And so on the eve of a new year, you've got two weeks left to 2025.

And in the hustle and bustle of the holidays and then in the slow time and that kind of purgatory week between Christmas and New Year, I want you to sit with this idea that I'm going to present to you today. And I want you to ask yourself, if you could find more failure in 2026, what could be possible for you? I think most of us avoid failure.

But we're not avoiding just failure itself. We're avoiding the version of ourselves that we meet when we fail. Because failing isn't fun or is it? Maybe after this you'll feel differently, but feeling like a failure, feeling less than, feeling as though we didn't achieve or accomplish something that we set our mind to, or trying something and not having it work.

is an awful feeling to sit with, especially as a perfectionist, which I believe almost all of you are. And many of you might be an Enneagram free, but it doesn't really matter as somebody who is an achiever, a striver. feels, it feels unnatural to find failure, but I want you to start seeing failure in your business as kind of meeting the edge.

of your capacity. So when you look at exercising, and I'm going to use this as a reference throughout today's podcast, because that's where the inspiration comes. But when you find failure in exercise, it's that rep that you take where your arm starts to shake. In business, it's an idea that just flops. It's a service that needs refinement. It is a moment, maybe in your marketing, that just didn't land.

Candice (09:04.298)

And we can see it through the lens of how we found failure in the past, which is I did something wrong. I didn't do things right. We can look at it as a collapse. We can look at it as proof that maybe you're not ready. We can look at it as humiliating if it happens in public, maybe a sign that you should quit what you're doing, or you can look at finding failure as an opportunity for growth.

What Adrian says in class is that, listen, you're here to grow. You're not here to stay the same. So why are you not finding failure in every rep that I'm giving you? And I would ask you, why are you not finding failure in every rep you take in your business? Business is such a personal growth journey. And I think that

It is disguised as a professional journey when really it is part of our human universe journey of growth and discovery and our spirit and our soul just learning and the wisdom that comes from life. People don't start businesses just for more money. We don't start businesses just for freedom or recognition. think underneath it, we want to discover

what we're capable of. And we want to become the person that we feel we're destined to be. We start businesses to stretch ourselves, to evolve as a person, to fulfill a purpose that we feel called to, and to kind of write a chapter of our life that we're very proud of. Work for a business owner, for an entrepreneur isn't just work. It is so much more than that.

And if business is part of who you're becoming as a person, as a human, as an individual, then the failure you experience along the way is part of the journey. I don't lift weights to stay in the same body. I lift weights to be stronger. I lift weights so that when I'm 70, I can pick something up off the floor so that I can keep up with

Candice (11:25.016)

My young friends and my young husband, I lift weights for so many different reasons. Some of it is aesthetic, but a lot of it is just health related. All that to say, I don't lift weights to stay in the same body. And you don't run a business to stay the same person. And what I see a lot as a business coach,

This is a pattern that I see it's getting ready mode and this is a trap that we fall into. And if you ruminate on anything from this episode, I want you to sit with this for a little bit. What have you been on the bench getting ready for, for the last year that you haven't fully put into action, that you haven't been called out onto the field for? Because a pattern I see as a business coach is people say,

You know, I want to do this thing, but I just want to do it right. Or I'm not ready yet. Or I have to learn more. I have to buy a course to do it. I just need to tweak a few more things. I just need to work on my logo for it. I just need to work on my artwork for it. I need to build a website for it. And then as I'm building this thing, I need to do this other thing that's going to help this main thing that I'm doing.

And this cycle, my gosh, it goes around and around in a circle where a whole year goes by. And that thing that you set out to do really, you haven't made much progress on it in front of the scenes. it is procrastination dressed up as preparation. People love to prepare. They love to be in getting ready mode, getting ready. You know, the idea of getting dressed and getting ready.

Sometimes it's more appealing than the idea of going out to dinner. And in business, I see this all the time. What you're doing is you're procrastinating, but you're dressing it up as preparation. am preparing for launching this thing. I am preparing to update my pricing. I am preparing to rebrand my business. I'm preparing to step into the version of myself that I want so badly, but I'm really scared to become.

Candice (13:41.774)

And some examples of this are the podcasts that gets prepared for a year and an episode never drops. You're just in the background preparing for this podcast, but nothing actually happens, but you're still behind the scenes. You're making it happen. You promise it's coming, but it never comes. This is the service that gets reworked again and again behind the scenes, but you never quite strike up the courage to market it or to actually sell it on a sales call.

The prices that we don't raise because we are nervous about the reception. I see this a lot with planners and with my private clients who want to charge a percentage or want to increase their price, but they're so unsure of themselves that they feel like they need to do all this work in order to just ask for more money. The truth is they've done all the work already. They should be asking for more money. This also shows up in branding and websites a lot.

you know, the website that you just keep adjusting instead of moving on to the next phase, which is sending traffic to it and trying to get people to pay attention to what you're doing. And I want you to know that avoiding failure in your business does not keep you safe. It keeps you stuck.

You've heard me say on this podcast before action creates clarity and clarity is something that we all need more of. If you want to know what your next move is, do something. If you want to know what your next move is, do something towards that next move. Don't continue to keep getting ready. Don't keep talking about it to your coach, to your mentor, to your partner. Take action.

Because action will create the clarity you need to take the next step. And unfortunately, because this is the, the, the nature of how the universe works, clarity typically comes from failure. So you take action, you try something, it doesn't work, but guess what? You learn something.

Candice (15:47.936)

And you adapt so that you come back to what you're working on with more wisdom, better understanding to do something. The next step is sharper and more clear. In business, you either win or you learn. You either win at what you're trying to do or you learn from what you've done and you do better next time. The more action you take, the clearer things will become.

And that clarity is usually disguised as failure. And my goal for you in 2026 is to seek out failure. So if you want higher prices, if you want stronger boundaries, if you want more consistency in your work, if you want better systems, if you want to grow your team, if you want better marketing, if you want to have a six figure year, a multiple six figure year, if you want to make

more money and do less work. If you want a more honest and aligned life, if you want more time not working and more time living, then you need more experiences that build resilience, that build confidence, that build adaptability, and also emotional stamina. Hey friend, hear that noise?

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Candice (18:12.11)

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What happens through failure is we become more resilient. We become more confident because we've seen the worst. And so, okay, we failed at that already. Okay. So that's the worst thing that could happen, I guess. So now that we've experienced that, then it's only up from here. With failure, we learn how to adapt our strategies, our mindset, our goals, and we build emotional, stamina and resilience and nothing.

Nothing builds that faster than small strategic failures. I want you to think about COVID. I often told the women I was mentoring at the time, if your business survives this, let me rephrase that. If your business survives COVID, there's really nothing you can't do. So if you started a business in 2020, which a lot of you did, 2020 brought so many great entrepreneurs into the wedding industry.

You started a business under the worst of circumstances. Look how far you've come. You've already lived through failures. And if you survived during COVID, if you were around before then, whether you started your business the day before lockdowns or the year before or the decade before, you have also lived through so many different obstacles that could have led to ultimate failure.

Candice (20:36.696)

And I think you've proven resilience in real time, which means you can handle failure now. We're going to pitch yourself to a publication, to a venue you've been dying to work at, to a conference that you want to speak at before you can talk yourself out of it. And guess what? If it flops, good. If people say no, if it completely blows up in your face,

Good, because now you have one of my favorite things in the world. Now you have data and data is what's going to help you with your next move. So I want you to fail fast in 2026 and I want you to do it on purpose. Launch before you feel ready. Sell before you have it all figured out. Start the next version of your business before you have all the answers. Pitch yourself.

before you can overthink it, hire the right person before you can talk yourself out of it. And if it flops, good, that's great. Now you have more data to work from and you have clarity. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to find ways to choose being uncomfortable versus what is familiar. When I step into my new gym, and if you follow me on Instagram, I've shared a little bit.

about our new gym space. We converted, I convinced my husband to take his office. Well, actually he offered to take his office, which is by our pool. It's outdoors. Take his office and turn it into our gym. Best thing we could have done. I feel like the baddest bitch in the neighborhood having this gym. Okay. When I step into my gym for a workout, I'm choosing to be uncomfortable in that space. Okay. Nothing about riding a Peloton bike.

Walking fast on a treadmill. can't run, so I am walking. Nothing about lifting weights, doing Pilates, doing bar stretching, doing squats and deadlifts and overhead presses is comfortable. I'm choosing discomfort. I want you to choose discomfort next year. Raise your fucking price. Be bolder in your marketing. Share what's on your heart. Share where you've come from. Share the personal story.

Candice (23:02.318)

that people don't know. Reach out to that person that you admire and tell them that you want to work with them. Sign up for a coaching program that you feel like you don't deserve. Go to the conference where you feel like you are the least qualified person to be there. Choose discomfort over

what's familiar because it's in that discomfort where you will feel growth. You will be stretched. You will feel sore, but that soreness is good. We covet that soreness when we work out, right? We seek it out. We want to feel sore because that means we did something. That means we were alive. We pushed ourselves. That's feedback for us. That soreness. I want you to grow.

I want you to push yourself out of your comfort zone and only you know where your comfort zone is right now. We all have a place where we sit because it's comfortable. We keep a certain team member around because it's comfortable. We keep our pricing the same because it's comfortable. We keep working with the same clients because it's familiar. We don't love it, but it's familiar.

And I'm thinking about all these examples of my private coaching clients, of all the things that we work on together and all the things that I hear from them. Get uncomfortable. Choose discomfort over what is familiar. In doing that, you will grow. The next thing I want you to do is let something be version one. How often do you sit down and create something and it has to be

the final version. It has to be museum quality, probably often. And you probably do this with everything. Be honest with yourself. I want you to start letting something be the first version. The first version, nobody's expecting the first version to be a Picasso. Nobody, even, know, Picasso's first version would be nice if we could have that. We would all be millionaires, right? But...

Candice (25:25.826)

Nobody's expecting the first version of something to be the best. When I look at this podcast, I look at 201 episodes now. The first episode of this podcast was good, but I mean, is it today's episode? No. If I had sat there in 2018 any longer and procrastinated and allowed my perfectionism to get ahold of me, I would not be sitting here sharing what I'm sharing with you today. I had to let that first episode be the first episode.

I had to let it be the first version. Version one is supposed to be rough. Version one is supposed to feel a little wobbly. Version one isn't supposed to be perfect. It's version one. And when you give yourself the opportunity to create version one of something, you give yourself the permission to go back and fix what doesn't work. To go back and make it look a little bit better, sound a little bit better.

Because through action, you'll be like, wait a minute, I got this new idea. can go here and just boop, boop, make this a little bit better. Version one is how every meaningful thing in your life started. And when you avoid version one, you sit in preparation mode. And we all know that really preparation mode is procrastination. And I don't want you procrastinating anymore. So tell yourself.

This is just version one. This is just version one of my goals for 2026. This is just version one of my new pricing for 2026. This is just version one of my new marketing idea for 2026. This is just version one of who I'm becoming in 2026. And let time and wisdom and the stimulus of failure help your version one grow into two, grow into three, and who knows when the final version will show.

I also want you to separate failure from your identity. It's so easy to get down in the dumps when things don't go the way we had planned. I mean, I get anxiety when the made up timeline I have in my head, people aren't following. So imagine what happens to me when I fail. I mean, I can tell you I had a failed launch.

Candice (27:54.446)

this year, the beginning of 2025, and it absolutely wrecked me. Never again. I will never let that happen again. And what I mean by that is I will never let failure define who I am and take control over my feelings and over my next move, limiting me from my potential. And so if you have let failure become part of your narrative,

If you have let failure become part of your identity, I need you to separate that. You didn't fail. Whatever it is that you were working on, you didn't fail. The experiment failed. And that's a different thing entirely. My launch at the beginning of this year didn't fail. The experiment I tried failed.

And when I separate the two, I realize it's not me. It is the thing I tried didn't work. But guess what? I learned so much. And in fact, I took that failure and I made something pretty amazing out of it. My business coach, Amber, was telling me at the time, she's like, girl, you got to see this differently. That's not how she talks, but that's how I talk. So I'm using my voice, but she's like, girl, you got to see this differently.

This is not failure. You've got this all set up now. You've learned so much. And in the moment, I couldn't hear that, but in retrospect, of course I can. And then I started taking this class with Adrian and I'm like, man, he's so right. I've got to seek out failure. And so for you, I want you to separate failure from who you are in your identity. You didn't fail. The experiment you tried failed. And that's a different thing entirely. Finally, I want you to celebrate the data.

celebrate the data that you get from every experiment you try, whether that experiment takes off and it's the best thing ever or it completely bombs. And ask yourself, what did this teach me? What clarity did I gain from this? What boundary did I discover through this? And what next steps does this unlock? When you start examining the data,

Candice (30:16.758)

and you start acknowledging your failures and what you learn from them, this is where you actually start growing. And you can see how doing this over and over again, failing more and more is going to teach you more and more. How you're going to get so much more clarity, how you're going to have better boundaries, because you're going to learn what not to do, what not to say, what not to allow, and what next steps you need to take.

Failure is actually momentum if you let it be. So your challenge for 2026 is to fail a little bit differently. Pick one area in your business where you're willing to fail. Maybe it's your marketing and visibility. Maybe it's experimenting with a new pricing structure that you really believe in that if you don't start selling,

And if you don't start putting it out there, you're never going to figure out how to crack the code and selling it. Maybe it's leadership. Maybe it's boundaries. Maybe it's creativity or decision-making. You don't have to fill out all of these. Maybe that's not the best idea, but who knows? It could be, it could be the ultimate secret to succeeding in 2026, but pick one.

Visibility, pricing, leadership, boundaries, creativity, decision-making, team, pivoting, expansion. Pick something. And if you want a different year, you have to be willing to fail differently. So just like you don't build muscle from taking it easy or keeping things safe, one of my favorite Peloton instructors, Hannah Corbin, I love her bar classes,

Feel the burn. When I'm sitting there doing those effing leg lifts and my butt is on fire, by the way, my Peloton username is buildingda, D-A, booty, if you want to go and follow me on Peloton. When I am there and my peach is burning, girl, and I'm saying to myself, my God, Hannah always says, this is what you showed up for. Let's go raise that leg, girl. This is what you showed up for. And she is right. And I'm like,

Candice (32:35.414)

I gotta lift my leg. is burning me. But she's right. I mean, I didn't show up in this room to stay safe. You don't grow muscle by doing nothing. You grow muscle from resistance and failure. And the same is true in business and also in your life. So if you want to grow in 2026, take my foolish advice. Don't avoid failure.

I want you to go and find it. My friends, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah. I hope that this season is magical for you. I hope it's restful. I hope that you take some time to reflect on a beautiful year with all the failures and all the successes that you achieved. I hope that you take time to reflect on all that you have accomplished and all that you have become.

And may 2026 meet you with open arms, a lot of positive energy, all good things. A new year is a blank slate full of lots of opportunity and possibility. And when I meet you back here on this podcast in the new year, that's going to be the focus of our first few episodes. So get excited.

Your business coach is in the building. I'm going to be guiding your mindset as we enter into a new year, talking about some things that I want you to consider as we start a beautiful new year. Do me a favor, screenshot this episode, share it to your Instagram stories, tag me, share it with a friend, a colleague, somebody who maybe you know has had a tough year, send it to them or

Send it to somebody who you think needs to hear it. And maybe who you would like to have as a failure partner, a failure buddy. Somebody who's willing to fail right alongside you. All right, friends, thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great rest of your 2025 and I'll see you in the new year. I wanna remind you there's so much power in your purpose. Until next time.

Candice (34:56.696)

Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power and Purpose Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerinpurposepodcast.com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerinpurposepodcast.com. I'll see you next time.