The thing I wish most for an aspiring creative person is, above all else, failure.

Immediate failure. Frequent failure. Small, everyday failure. Colossal, soul-crushing failure.

I don’t mean heart failure or car failure—though, to be honest, a stalled engine on the side of the road has, on occasion, led me to an epiphany.

I was always ambitious. I wanted to make movies, tell stories, say something. I talked a big game. But underneath all that, I was fragile.

In my twenties—and well into my thirties—I stood at the back of rooms with my arms crossed, talking about what was “great work” and what wasn’t. Judging. Labeling.

It felt like discernment, but really it was fear.

Now I want those years back. The stories I could’ve told. The films I might’ve made.

But when you turn 60, like I have, you realize you can’t get back lost time.

It wasn’t until things got desperate—when somehow I got work and had no other choice but to blindly leap—that I finally risked putting myself out there. And then, naturally, I succeeded… right? That’s the narrative we like to tell about artists. But no. I fell flat.

One friend gave it to me straight: “Davis, you shit the bed.”

Some of that early work—I still hide it from my adult children.

But the gut-punch of those first failures cracked me open, made me vulnerable.

Each time I failed, the sting hurt a little less. Eventually, I could sit down beside my fear in the morning and somehow be OK.

And that’s when the work began.

Some of it has been “good.”
Some of it has been “bad.”
Some still makes me wince. But this is the path of a creative life.

Failure is not the enemy. It is like a companion. Sometimes I welcome it. Often I resist or resent it. But I know it is with me whether I like it or not.

Most days I fail in some capacity. I lose hours chasing a notion that turns out to be hollow. Just yesterday I was enthralled by an idea that this morning I realize doesn’t work. Once, that would’ve flattened me. Now I brush it off, trusting that the next idea wouldn’t be possible without it.

Failure isn’t a pitfall—it’s the ground we walk on.

How else are you supposed to make something bold? Something strange, hopelessly romantic, or embarrassingly sincere? You have to risk looking like a fool.

And yes—most of the time, those leaps miss. You fall. But every once in a while, they don’t. But when one leap finally lands… that’s when something surprising and beautiful presents itself.

So I wish you failure. The real kind. And the courage to overcome it.