My then wife and mother of my three children turned to me in the kitchen after I told her i had to close the ‘organic raw milk company’ down, and said: You’re getting good at this! I responded, “What do you mean?” She said “Failure!”.

Yes that comment stung a little, but it didn’t faze me, I knew then that the relation was heading for the inevitable slow and horrific train crash it was destined to be. But I knew that ‘Failure’ wasn’t bad, in fact it is the basis of anything real.

Later that year, when I was 40 years old, and I started going to the gym for the first time in my life, I learnt first hand that failure was how you got stronger. Not just stronger but how muscle really gets stimulated to grow.

Now at least once a week I’m a failure, i go to failure in the gym, because at my age, it’s the only way to challenge my body to make real changes. Failure is sobering, ego crushing, exhausting, but also rewarding.

You don’t know where your edge is, until you go to failure, you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’ve tried your best, with every ounce of what you’ve got in reserves.

From there you’ve got a baseline of your Personal Best, which you can shape your training and growth around. And you’ve got a goal you surpass. So that next time, you can beat your competition. The only competition that counts, You versa the person you were yesterday.