Peel the Failure Label
Strip the 'failure' sticker off events so you can see what actually happened
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 82%
Wedmore's mechanism rests on a single distinction: failure is not something in 3D reality you can touch, taste, or put in a wheelbarrow. It is a label, judgment, or opinion placed on an event. The damage happens when people collapse the event and the label together — 'this happened, therefore it's a failure' — and then collapse it further into 'therefore I am a failure', literally creating that identity and finding evidence for it everywhere. The method is to peel the label off, look at the raw situation without emotion, and treat the event as information. Paired with the choice to live from 'my success is inevitable', every high-stakes attempt (an 'at bat moment') can only return one of two things: the result you wanted or better, or the lesson you still needed to learn. Resistance — labeling and looking away — is what makes an outcome persist.
Origin
Extracted from The Jasmine Star Show
Core principles
- 01Failure is not a tangible thing you can hold; it is a label you place on an event.
- 02Collapsing an event with the label 'failure' — and worse, with 'I am a failure' — creates the identity you then find evidence for.
- 03Resisting an outcome by labeling it and looking away makes it persist.
- 04Leaders deal with 'what is' without opinions, emotions, fears, or doubts.
- 05If success is treated as inevitable, every attempt returns either the result or the lesson.
How to run it
- 1
Catch the collapse
Notice when you have fused an event with the word 'failure', and especially when you have slid into 'I am a failure'.
Pro tip The very fact you feel like a failure is proof of how powerfully you create your own self-concept.
Watch out Saying 'I am the failure' is the single most damaging move; it manufactures an identity you then live into.
- 2
Peel the sticker off
Mentally lift the 'failure' label off the launch, product, or idea and separate it from the event underneath.
Watch out Expect discomfort — looking at the wound surfaces the pain you were avoiding.
- 3
Look at what is
Observe the raw situation without opinions, emotions, fears, or doubts — deal only with the facts.
Pro tip This is the skill Wedmore attributes to leaders: the ability to face what is directly.
Watch out Resisting or looking away keeps the problem persisting.
- 4
Choose 'success is inevitable'
Adopt the operating belief that if the desire came from your heart, you have the raw ability to realize it, so success is a matter of when.
Watch out This is a choice, not a feeling; you have to keep re-choosing it over the old model.
- 5
Read the at-bat outcome
After each high-stakes attempt, classify the result as either 'what I wanted or better' or 'the lesson I still needed' — never as failure.
Pro tip If you didn't get the outcome yet, the only reason is there is still something for you to learn.
In the wild
Jasmine had defined herself her whole life by her failures. In her first year with Wedmore he told her there is no such thing as failure, only a lesson. She admits she wishes she could say she heard it and changed instantly, but it took a couple of years to reprogram what failure meant. Over their years together, as she grew accustomed to Wedmore ripping the label off and asking her to look and learn, she eventually became empowered to peel the label off herself.
→ Jasmine moved from labeling and avoiding outcomes to facing and learning from them.
Common mistakes
Collapsing 'I did this' into 'I am a failure'
Fusing an event with a failure identity brings that identity into existence and you begin finding evidence of it everywhere.
Labeling and looking away
Calling something a failure to avoid examining it is resistance, and what you resist persists.
Treating the concept as enough
Agreeing that 'failure is a stepping stone' changes nothing; knowledge is only the potential for power until it is applied in action.
Is it for you?
Best for
Entrepreneurs who avoid bold action because a bad outcome would feel like proof they are a failure.
Not ideal for
Situations that call for objective risk analysis of a genuinely bad decision rather than emotional reframing.
From the transcript
“Failure is a label, judgment or opinion that we place on an event or circumstance or situation or ourselves.”
“And what I like to do is say let's pull that label off.”
“you'll get the lesson you needed.”
From the episode
Break Free from the Fear of Failing with James Wedmore
James Wedmore