Failure is the best!

"Failure is cool, necessary and the best to get to where you wanna be. Any failure is a step forward, and nothing else", said Lilly Singh to a roomful of smart, ambitious women at the #GIRLBOSS rally in LA recently.

My idol, Sophia Amoruso, who was moderating the discussion, allowed those words to sink in for a bit before she then said, "I agree". 

 Sophia Amoruso (left) with Lilly Singh (right) at the #GIRLBOSS rally in LA in March 2017

For those of you who have no idea what a #GIRLBOSS rally is, or who Lilly Singh and Sophia Amoruso are (and if you are remotely curious), do visit this site here: https://www.girlboss.com/

In a nutshell, it's a portal for women who want to redefine success on their own terms. Their bi-annual event, the #GIRLBOSS rally discusses career, wellness, politics, sexuality, creativity, finance and more— for women to take ownership over their successes and lift each other up.

I've purchased a one year subscription to 'The Girlboss Academy' and it's amazing. Some podcast are more interesting that others although it's subjective as I'm mostly interested in their entrepreneurship related materials, and not really in their other stuff.

But anyhoo. I was watching this video to the part where Lilly mentioned that 'failure is the best', and was having mixed feelings about that comment.

For those who are regular customers on fitrebel.com, you’ll know that I released a 'Fantasy Collection' which was inspired by the hit television fantasy drama series, Game of Thrones. This was in July 2017.

The artpieces which were created for this collection included a Dragon, Wolf, Raven, Red Tree and an abstract Fire & Ice artpiece. It was fantastic. People either loved it or they didn’t get it, but it definitely got attention and made heads turn.

 Farah in our 'Magic Dragon' Leggings from Seni by Fit Rebel's Fantasy Collection

After such a fierce collection, I made a decision that the next collection was gonna be more feminine and stereotypically beautiful. And what could be more feminine and beautiful that flowers, right?

I got to work on the Floral Collection. 5 pieces of artwork were commissioned but after prototyping, only 3 out of the 5 turned out really well. The Floral Collection is as below:

 Sakura-Panda Leggings

Heliconia Leggings

 

 Morning Glory Leggings

The Floral Collection was launched on December 2017. I was very proud of this collection (as I am with ALL my collections) and was expecting them to sell like hot cakes, especially with all the shopping frenzy that happens around the Christmas season.

Only to find that... they didn’t end up selling all that well..

If I had to be completely honest, ever since the launch in December 2017, I have only sold 32 pairs of the Morning Glory leggings that you see down here.

32 pairs isn’t great. For comparison sake, approximately 200 pairs of the Fighting Fish leggings were sold within the first 3 months of it’s launch. 

So, selling only 32 pairs of the Morning Glory leggings meant that I sold 7 times less pairs compared to the Fighting Fish leggings.

I was crestfallen. To a certain extent, it didn’t feel fair that all my hard work went unappreciated.

In January 2018, I felt as if I didn’t have the drive to create a Spring 2018 Collection (for an April launch). I just felt like – if people weren’t buying my stuff, why should I even bother creating another collection so soon? I had half the mind to just wait for the Floral Collection to slowly sell out before I embarked on the creation of the next collection.

As all these thoughts and emotions were swirling within me, I stumbled upon the video mentioned above. Two women who were highly successful in their careers and conquering life both agreed that failure was great.

I just HAD to take a split second to reflect.

Perspective is everything, isn’t it?

After giving it a lot of thought and internalizing it, I realized that to be great, I have to make mistakes, so that I can learn how to be better.

The more failures I make, the more lessons I will learn and sooner or later, if I keep on moving forward with all the lesson, I WILL be great. 

I learnt from this experience that maybe the reason why the Floral Collection isn’t doing as well as expected was because flowers have been displayed on activewear extensively, and it wasn’t exactly unique or mind blowing or as spectacular as my previous works.

I also learnt that the reason why the Morning Glory Leggings weren’t selling as well as as I’d hope is because the background is white. Regardless of how gorgeous the design is, some women are wary of wearing white leggings as they are afraid that their underwear will show through. For those of you who have bought my previous Peacock leggings with a white background, you’ll know that the material is thick enough that your underwear will NOT be visible through the leggings. 

Unfortunately, I have an online store and customers cannot try on the leggings to learn about this for themselves. Therefore, I can keep on producing white leggings which may not sell as well as I’d like, or I can produce darker colors which will sell better. The choice is mine. Everything is an opportunity to learn.

When I managed to wrap the idea around my head that ‘failure is awesome’ I snapped out of my funk. I am currently working hard on a Spring 2018 Collection, scheduled for an April release. Here’s a sneak peek: 

I am VERY PROUD and VERY EXCITED for this collection. It’s gonna be (wait for it)... LEGENDARY! 😊

On to other matters... For regular followers of this blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t written a single word here in 2017. That’s because I was busy writing my very first book, “The Misfit Rebel”!

After my book was published, a series of serendipitous events lead me to meet and have coffee with a woman I highly admire, Marina Mahatir and I gave her the very first copy. It was so surreal.

The Misfit Rebel was launched in December 2017 and became an MPH Bestseller (local, non-fiction) by January 2018.

Me (middle, with a book on my head) with some of my favorite people in the world at the book launch of 'The Misfit Rebel' at MPH, 1Utama on 20 Dec 2017.

 The Misfit Rebel made it to MPH's weekly bestseller's list for local, non-fiction books

This book is essentially my story of how I left the corporate world to pursue my ambition to create the world’s most beautiful leggings to encourage women to workout more often and to lead healthier and happier lives. Essentially, it’s a tale revolving around the theme of pursuing your dreams fearlessly.

A series of random events has lead me to the decision to convert this book into a script to send to studios in Hollywood to be made into a movie. Very specifically, the studio that I am targeting is the one that was founded by Reese Witherspoon which creates content on female empowerment.

This may not go anywhere, but it sure seems like a helluva fun project to work on. And besides, you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take, so why not take just 1 (ONE) shot at this? 😊

Well, that’s all for today folks. So happy to be back and writing. Writing makes me happy and from the feedback that I have been getting, you guys seem to enjoy reading my random ramblings so everybody’s happy.

Will be writing more in 2018 and aiming for 2 posts a week, but it will depend on how much free time I have and how non-lazy-ish I feel.

Love you guysssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

XOXO!