when the fall hurts

📉 In 2005, I opened a restaurant at a time my main food item (crawfish) wasn't in season. I didn't even know crawfish was seasonal.

📉 In 2010, a friend and I bought $1,000 worth of Bitcoin when it was valued at $1. I sold it a few months later, because I thought the idea was stupid.

📉 In 2012, I married someone who, I later found, had an affair with a good friend of mine, and divorced her.

📉 In 2019, I opened two dessert shops that closed within within months. Over $500,000 was lost.

📉 In 2020, I closed two more restaurants during COVID. Over $1M was lost.

There are countless other mistakes I can't even track, right now. And it's guaranteed to cover my successes, 1,000-to-1.

But...

🚀 In 2008, I sold that restaurant I had no business running, for good multiple. And it set me on the path to a rewarding career in restaurants and franchising.

🚀 In 2022, I re-entered crypto and didn't miss the next jump.

🚀 In 2014, I re-married to the love of my life (and just celebrated our 10-year anniversary).

🚀 In 2023, my $15M chain of restaurants was acquired by a hospitality company.

🚀 In 2024, some of my past investors and partners from The Halal Guys want to follow me into building Pepper Lunch.

🚀 Over the past 17 years, I've been able to help people achieve their dreams of restaurant ownership; taking their companies public; opening stores around the globe; getting acquired; and living out their purpose.

The falls may suck. They may be plenty.

But they don't offset the wins.

In fact, they enhance them.

What are your failures en route to success?