I know this might come as a shock to you people, but growing up, I was a bona fide nerd. I know, I know. Hard to believe that this super classy, sophisticated, mature adult you now know and love at one time owned over 80 pieces of Harry Potter paraphernalia but I sure did.

I mean, I was in the chess club in middle school, you guys. And I placed second at the end of the year tournament. This is not a drill. So it should come as no surprise to you that my extracurricular activities of choice skewed more in the direction of the arts rather than in the world of sports and athletics. And so, I was in choir. I started school choir as early as they’d let me (which was seventh grade, I think) and fell in love with singing and performing.

In high school, choir became a defining part of my identity. I was in deep. Four out of seven of my class periods in junior year were held in the choir room. I loved that room. I ate lunch there (yes, with friends, why do you ask?). I met people there who are still my friends today. I learned a lot life lessons in that room as well. One that I’ll always remember was taught to me by our choir director who had a propensity towards teaching life lessons in connection with music. (Singing in a group is the best way to learn about life. I’ll die on that hill)

One of the choirs I belonged to was called Bel Canto; a small women’s choir that was made up of 30 or so female singers. I had the opportunity to part jump in that choir; I sang whatever was needed the most, so I had the chance to learn every part from first soprano down to second alto. It was a wonderful learning experience and my musicality grew exponentially that year. The choir director, Christopher Borges, spent a lot of time teaching us all to sing boldly. Many of the girls were shy or hesitant to sing, especially if they thought they might hit a wrong note. I was among them frequently. I didn’t want to sing something unless I knew it would come out right and so if I got to an unfamiliar part, I’d turn the volume down substantially until I’d mentally worked out the part. But Mr. Borges would stop us when he noticed that happening.

“If you’re going to make a mistake, do it loudly! It’s only when we hear the mistake that we’ll know how to correct it. If I can’t hear you mess up, I won’t know what to rehearse,”

This made great logical sense, but my pubescent brain just could not be convinced to sing my mistakes loudly! How mortifying. I was a section leader, which meant that I was being counted on to know my part better or at least as well as others in my group so that I could help them when they struggled. I couldn’t ever let myself make a loud mistake.

Until a few days later, when I auditioned for a solo.

That day lives on in my memory as one of the most mortifying auditions I’ve ever experienced. I was so determined and felt confident(ish…I mean, how confident are slightly chubby 15-year-old girls on average?) and had been practicing. It’s the biggest irony of my life that I both adore and am terrified by singing in public. My heart was beating, my palms were sweating and I was sitting on the choir steps, waiting for my turn. My face was hot. I’d listened to several variations of the solo and had kind of made up my own (Mr. Borges suggested we try and make it ‘ours’) and then, it was my turn.

I stood up …and I butchered it. Badly.

The first line was okay, but then came the next line where I improvised an embellishment and I tripped all over myself vocally. I loudly and proudly belted out the worst set of notes you could possibly imagine and then it was over. I wanted to die. The air was thick with that kind of silence that happens when your peers are laughing internally and trying to be kind simultaneously because they’re grown up enough to know they shouldn’t be blatantly rude, but young enough that they really want to be. They clapped politely and some of them snickered. I sat down and put my head in my hands, forcing myself not to make it worse by crying in front of everyone.

Mr. Borges stopped the auditions.

Oh no. I’m kicked out of choir. This is the end of my singing career altogether.

I’d already internally promised myself to never audition for or sing a solo again, but now I was sure this was the end of my singing altogether. My title as section leader would be immediately revoked and I’d be put in the back row where the 6-foot-somethings would tower over me, hiding me away forever more.

But he didn’t do any of that. And what he did say, shocked me as much as it embarrassed me, “People! Did you notice what Alicia just did?”

Um. Yeah. We all noticed…she literally just made the worst sounds we’ve ever heard come out of a human body. Thanks, professor.

“She just took a risk!”

Yeah, fat lotta good that did. Way to drive the point home: never take risks or you’ll sound like a dying cat.

“She just sang that solo loud and proud and she messed up! But the important thing was that she tried something new. She wasn’t afraid to risk failing. She did it anyway! That is what I want from you guys; fearlessness, boldness, confidence, willingness to risk your pride or your reputation and go for it!”

And then. He gave me the solo.

Now, I’m coming at this from an adult perspective and realizing that I got that solo out of an attempt for that director to teach us a lesson. I clearly hadn’t sung well. I clearly didn’t deserve it on the merits of having succeeded vocally. But I had taken a risk. And he was rewarding that risk; that willingness to step outside of my comfort zone and try something new even when it meant I might crash and burn. He rewarded the failure by allowing me the chance to try again and succeed.

I credit that singular moment with my ability now to sing in front of audiences. Terrified though I am to do it, I physically can, and voluntarily do fairly regularly. If he had moved past that moment and not given me the solo (as he was well within reason to have done, let me just tell you) it’s very likely that I would have been mentally stuck there and might never have given myself a chance to do anything like that ever again.

That moment of failure gave way to many future failures; vocally, educationally, professionally, personally. I’ve attempted and failed many, many times at all kinds of things. But I keep trying! And I try really hard to remember that not trying doesn’t mean not failing, it just means never succeeding. Sometimes, you have to fail loud and proud for all the world to hear in order to really succeed later.

So here’s what happened: I had this idea a few months ago. This enormous, exciting, wonderful idea. This idea where you go, “Why doesn’t that exist yet??” and you really start thinking about it and researching it and you think, “We should make this into a thing,” and so you take the idea to your business-savvy husband and he is equally enthused, and you tell your close circle of family and friends and they are in full support because they want to buy it someday. And so you meet with professionals who point you in the right directions and give you sound advice about how to make this idea a reality, and you start working on protecting your idea with a patent and writing down a plan of action for bringing this thing to fruition and the excitement is building as you get closer and closer to maybe seeing this thing launch.

And you conduct some preliminary market research and hundreds of people take your survey (thank you SO MUCH for your help, everyone) and you find out that people are really annoyed by the same problem you were and that almost no one knows of any other way to handle the problem and that your idea is super marketable and potentially worth a lot of money and then…hundreds of survey participants later you find out: this idea? This wonderful, big, fantastic idea… It already exists. It’s a thing. Amazon sells it. Wanna see what I was going to create but someone already did?

Yep. Spray-on diaper rash ointment. You’d never heard of it? Me neither. And I didn’t find it in Walmart or in Target or in Smith’s or on a long list of patented diaper rash ointment products that I read through on the United States Patent site. But you guys. I never googled it. WHY?! Why didn’t I consider the fact that it might be online only and not in stores? Sigh.

So many hours spent in research and collaboration with Shem. So much excitement. So many dreams for the future success of our business.

And it’s. Already. A thing.

So I mean, first of all, how have I gotten through four children in diapers without ever having known this exists?? And second of all, why in the world are they not in stores??

And the worst part of it all is that now I’ve had hundreds of people take the survey who are now curious about what we’re concocting. People I’ll probably never be able to contact or explain it to. It’s like I set a flag out on our front yard, advertising a titillating secret project and then had to randomly remove the flag so that now when cars pass by, they’ll go, “Wait. Where’s the flag? Why was it there in the first place? WHAT IS THE SECRET? I think the people that live there might be cray-cray,”

Or maybe people just won’t care that much. One can hope. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling embarrassed. It’s like I’m in high school, auditioning for that solo all over again and sitting down on the choir steps, defeated and embarrassed at having been witnessed in my defeat. And this time, there’s no benevolent third party who’ll give us the ‘solo’ because the solo has already been taken. Stupid Boogie Bottoms! Why’d your name have to be so darn perfect, too? We’re fighting… but I’m straight up buying some.

And so, on I go to the next project. The next idea. Potentially the next failure. I’m driven from failure to failure in the faith that I’m learning and gaining experience and am determined that one day the next attempt will stick. And the things we’ve learned this time will be relevant and important in our next venture.

So go forth, friends! Go forth and fail! And make room for other people’s failure and congratulate their attempts. Be supportive of your friends successes and failures in equal measure. Let’s do our best to create the type of society my choir director dreamed of; one in which risk is rewarded and failures are not endings.

Be bold. Sing loud. Miss notes. Fail spectacularly.