The Magic of Failure and Why Failing Should Excite You
- Jun 8, 2025
- 5 min read
Sheun David Onamusi is a respected and inspiring healthcare collaborator, entrepreneur, and mind coach. He is the founder of Efra Wellbeing, a wellbeing startup, and Still Dapper UK, a bespoke leather goods company. An award-winning author, mentor, and part-time communications advisor to emerging leaders.
"We live in a world full of magic." I thought long and hard about what my opening line should be as I share my first article with you on Brainz Magazine, and yes, that's the best I could come up with: We live in a world full of magic. Not the kind pulled from top hats or conjured with wands, but the kind hidden in moments of failure that initially feel disappointing, disorienting, or even devastating to the point where you feel defeated.
However, do you know that one of the most underrated places to find magical forces that shape each great person's life has been the word "Failure"? Yes, failure. It's a hard sell in a world of reels and captions because we've been conditioned to celebrate flawless execution and overnight success.
No one you know will want to make a business around their failures because, let's be honest, we want to hear the thrill and excitement more than the doom and gloom. But those who have built anything meaningful, whether in business, art, science or as a person of moral aptitude, will tell you that failure wasn't the end. It was the beginning of something unexpected, essential, and ultimately transformative.
My childhood magic moment
Take, for instance, a story from the bustling city of Lagos, Nigeria. A young boy, barely nine, regularly hailed public transport to run errands most times, 6-10 miles away from home. He'd navigate crowded markets, negotiate forex transactions, and haggle over ingredients for his guardian's African snacks, "Puff Puff" and "Chin Chin". That young boy was me, and no, I didn't walk all the way.
I must admit that these errands weren't glamorous. Sometimes, they were fraught with wrong turns, mistakes, and even getting short-changed. However, that boy's failures didn't derail him; they trained him.
Embedded in those moments was an early education in resilience, negotiation, and self-trust, skills I would later draw on in the corporate world and my entrepreneurial ventures. They gave me a window into human behaviour, commerce, and negotiation. More importantly, they instilled in me a profound belief that the world is inherently magical.
And therein lies one of the first truths about failure: its magic is often invisible at the moment but invaluable in hindsight.
It is time to redefine failure as a necessary part of life
Most of us grow up believing failure is something to avoid at all costs. Somewhere along the way, most of society has conditioned us to fear failure. The dread of bringing home a report card with red crosses or the closed doors you experienced when you first pitched that idea you were convinced would revolutionise the world. Or that rejection wrapped up carefully in the "it's not you, it's me" your high school sweetheart told you. But the greatest minds in history, the startup genius, and the guy who got "lucky" all saw things differently.
Thomas Edison, for instance, failed over a thousand times before successfully inventing the lightbulb, and when asked about it, he said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."Failure, for great minds, isn't a sign of incompetence. It was a data point, a moment for much-needed feedback and, sometimes, course correction. Inviting them to adopt a mindset that failure is not the opposite of success but rather a vital part of it.
You need to seek the magic in the failure
Magic is the power of apparently influencing events through mysterious forces. Therefore, failure, when you step back far enough, has the magical power to reorder your life in ways you could never have scripted.
After Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the very company he co-founded, he described it as one of the most liberating periods of his life. "It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods I've ever known," he once said.
That season of failure gave birth to Pixar, NeXT, and a refined version of Apple's identity that ultimately changed the world. Had he not failed, he might never have evolved. The same is true for you as it is for me.
Avoiding or dreading failure is akin to avoiding the evolutionary process.
The question should never be "How can I avoid failure?" but "What is this or past failure revealing that I have missed"?
Embracing failed opportunities is the only way to guarantee that opportunity will return
Here's something worth remembering: what you embrace eventually becomes a part of you. Whatever is a part of you has a way of returning to you, even if it stays away temporarily. This is true for love as it is for the whole of life. That's why the wise would often say, "Whatever is yours will never miss you." When you accept failure without bitterness, shame, or blame, you rewire your brain to see challenges as invitations to lock in on your self-development. You don't see failures as threats when you embrace them. Neuroscientists now believe that when we reflect on failure constructively, the brain builds new neural pathways that increase adaptability, grit, and long-term motivation.
In other words, failure makes you stronger if you let it.
Many opportunities that appear lost will come back to you. But when they do, the question is: Will you be ready the second time? Embracing failure positions you to say yes, not with desperation, but with deepened wisdom when the opportunity comes knocking the next time.
The final step is to share your failure stories – Someone needs to hear them
When you share your failure stories, you do something profoundly human: you give others permission to be real. Whether you're mentoring a rising leader, raising a child, or writing your next chapter, your failure, honestly shared, becomes someone else's flashlight in moments of deep darkness.
The young entrepreneur who feels like giving up, the creative who doubts their talent, and the professional navigating career setbacks don't need just your highlight reel; they need to see the human behind the device. They need your behind-the-scenes.
My closing line
Failure isn't just something to tolerate. It's something to look forward to with hope. It has within it the seeds of reinvention, the power of transformation, and the roadmap to a life that's authentic, resilient, and full of purpose.
Let me reiterate this: we live in a world full of magic. And if you're in a season of failing forward, take heart. To fail is not to be broken. To fail is to grow. You're not breaking down. You're being rebuilt. Abracadabra, YES!!! We live in a world full of magic. And that magic isn't reserved for fairy tales or fantasy novels. It's hidden in everyday experiences.
Welcome to my first article, and don't forget to subscribe. Let's explore life's magic together.
Till the next time I sit behind my desk to write you: What's one failure in your life that ended up redirecting you toward something greater? Please share it in the comments. Let's reflect on it together!
Read more from Sheun David Onamusi
Sheun David Onamusi, Healthcare Collaborator, Entrepreneur, Mind Coach
Sheun David Onamusi is a thought leader in how the mind influences success in business and life. Graduating from his first degree with a lower second class, he struggled with imposter syndrome which led to a life changing experience in 2021. He has since dedicated his life to collaborating and helping others find purpose and relentlessly seek to change one life at a time. His mission: Shape life through words & actions.
