What would you do differently if you were just 10% less afraid of failing?
Across the first ten episodes of the Money & Us podcast, one theme has kept coming up time and time again, albeit in very different ways: failure.
In this special episode, your host Anna Brading brings together five of the most powerful perspectives from the series so far, exploring what failure really looks like, why our fear of it can stop us from starting and whether some of the things we label as failures are actually failures at all.
World Cup winning England international Zoe Harrison knows what it feels like to come within touching distance of the ultimate goal, losing a World Cup final before eventually going on to win one. She talks about allowing herself to feel that disappointment before changing how she looked at what happened and using it to move forward.
Serial entrepreneur and MBE Alex Depledge sold her business for £32 million. Her reaction? It wasn’t £100 million. Her story shows how comparison can distort our perception of success and leave even hugely accomplished people feeling as though they haven’t done enough.
Author and founder of Sober Girl Society Millie Gooch challenges the idea that something has to reach rock bottom before we accept it isn’t working. Sometimes failure looks more like “rock middle”, repeating the same patterns while waiting for something dramatic enough to tell us it’s time to change.
Investment expert Joshua Raymond spent years working in finance before he started investing himself. Sometimes failure isn’t trying something and getting it wrong. It’s allowing fear to stop us from beginning in the first place.
Finally, Stewart McCulloch shares perhaps the most poignant perspective of all. After growing up in poverty, he went on to earn a £1 million bonus and build a life filled with the outward markers of financial success. Following the devastating loss of his wife, he was confronted with something no amount of money could fix.
Throughout the episode, Anna shares her own reflections on failure, comparison, money and the things she may be avoiding through fear of getting them wrong.
Money is a tool. It can create security, freedom and opportunity, but there are limits to what it can do for us. Failure isn’t always the disaster we imagine either. Sometimes it’s a perspective that needs changing, comparison creeping in, a pattern we need to recognise or a first step we’ve been too frightened to take.
This episode is for anyone who has ever held back because they’re scared of getting something wrong, struggled to recognise their own success or found themselves wondering whether it’s time to change direction. Perhaps being a little less afraid of failure could change what we’re willing to go for.
Chapters:
00:00 – What if you were 10% less afraid of failure?
02:22 – Lesson 1: Reframing failure | Zoe Harrison
15:24 – Lesson 2: When comparison feels like failure | Alex Depledge MBE
23:31 – Lesson 3: You don’t need to hit rock bottom | Millie Gooch
31:26 – Lesson 4: The failure of never starting | Joshua Raymond
34:50 – Lesson 5: When money fails us | Stewart McCulloch
39:48 – Anna’s final thoughts on failure
Follow:
Alex’s Depledge: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-depledge-mbe-22b57a14
Zoe Harrison: https://www.instagram.com/zoeharrison123?stkn=MW1xcWVydW93N3N5Zg==
Millie Gooch: https://www.instagram.com/milliegooch?stkn=M2c3andteGN4eXMy
Joshua Raymond: https://www.instagram.com/xtb_uk?stkn=MTAya3l2eGE1YWd1cQ==
Stewart McCulloch: https://www.instagram.com/capuk_org?stkn=bGNtbjR4Z2l6eWJs
Follow Anna Brading:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentoramoney/?hl=en-gb
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annajoybrading/
Website: https://www.mentoramoney.com
Follow Money & Us:
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moneyanduspod?_r=1&_t=ZN-97TWiGIYThe
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