Why failure matters more than success

Interview Summary

Spotting the Problem in Healthcare Timestamp

01:31: Shakila recalls confronting capacity issues in radiology twice—first as a hospital professional, later as a consultant—which inspired her to pursue entrepreneurship despite uncertainty.

Taking the Leap into Entrepreneurship

03:38: Shakila shares advice for professionals on the edge: test assumptions, talk to those affected, and recognize who truly “owns” the problem before deciding how to act.

Impact Beyond the Company

05:59: Impact isn’t just about teams or customers; it radiates to industries, vendors, and aspiring founders. Entrepreneurs often influence more than they realize.

Failing in Public and Lessons Learned

07:30: Shakila explains why failure should be visible: to normalize struggle, reduce stigma, and build collective resilience—failure is the “price of entry” into meaningful work.

Sitting with Setbacks and Finding Joy

17:53–20:19
Shakila describes separating self-worth from failure, sometimes just sitting with it instead of pushing through, and how joy now comes from empowering her team and laughing together.

Transcript

Barrak (00:21)

Hi, Shakila. Thank you so much for making the time to speak with me and for joining us here on the Joy of Business. I was wondering if you could just first of all start by telling us a little bit about your journey into entrepreneurship.

Shakila (00:33)

Thank you so much for having me. So happy to be here. Yes, can, my journey into entrepreneurship actually started ⁓ in a rather strange way because I was headed in a complete different direction. I was in management consulting and primarily working in the healthcare sector, helping with digital transformation services.

And prior to that, I was working as a professional in the hospitals. And the reason for I ended up on the entrepreneurial journey was because I stumbled upon a problem that I had ⁓ faced earlier as well. And there was, I think, around 10 years between me stumbling into this problem the first time around and then when I was within management consulting, I stumbled into again. And then I thought, okay, maybe I should try and see if I can solve it.

Barrak (01:26)

And what was that problem? And what made you feel like, okay, this is something that I really need to solve?

Shakila (01:31)

So the problem was actually about this huge capacity issue that we have in healthcare. We are having more and more older population and not enough doctors and specialists within especially my area which is the radiology area. And I could just see that we were using these services where you send these x-rays and CT scans to a subcontractor and they would look at them and then send it back. But the whole process was not very efficient, causing long waiting lines for patients. And ultimately that would actually mean that your cancer treatment was not, you were not receiving it as fast as you could otherwise if the system was more efficient.

That was a problem that I encountered when I was working as a hospital professional. But at that time, couldn't see the, from my vantage point, I couldn't see how big the problem was. But then when I, as a management consultant, went back to actually help make these processes more efficient, I could see how big this problem was. And I also had a different tool kit. So I had a big belief that I had all the right tools to actually be able to solve the problem. It's a different thing that I learned that I didn't, but you know, but we can get into that later.

Barrak (02:53)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that part of being an entrepreneur is not just believing in yourself, but believing that you can figure it out. That's sort of a level of, I don't want to say delusionalism, but you need to have a fantasy. You need to build the fantasy. And I think it's so interesting the way that you were working within the industry as a professional. And so that gave you firsthand experience with this pain point, this literally life or death issue. What advice do you have for other people who are still in their professional settings, who maybe are afraid to take the jump? They see, okay, there's a big problem here. And I have firsthand experience. I think I know how to deal with it. But I'm afraid of taking that leap.

Shakila (03:38)

Yeah, that's so interesting. And to be honest, I wish I could give you like one piece of advice that would go for all situations. And I'm afraid I can't do that. So my way of dealing with it was that I just jumped right into it. I quit my job at this big management consulting firm where I was a very valued employee.

And I think that gave a lot of respect from my surroundings, right, that I did it that way. But I think there are ways to do this so that it doesn't have to be so, so that you can decrease the risk a little bit more. you can, I've learned, so before I didn't know that you could actually kind of be more transparent about your ambitions and how things were changing.

You can do that in your work environment and not all work environment will be able to handle that in a good way and some will. And if they are not handling it in that good way, then it's also kind of a good ⁓ takeaway for you to know that maybe you should not take the gradual way into it, but maybe more abrupt way the way that I did it. But what I would advise everyone that is, ⁓ everyone who's standing on the edge looking into the deep job that this entrepreneurial ⁓ journey is to ask, to talk a lot with the people around, like ask for advice, talk to people who are having the problem. Are they actually really having the problem? And also figure out who owns the problem. But it's not always the ones that are experiencing the problem that are also the ones that can do something about the problem. So that's also really important because in my experience what I found out was that the people who were experiencing the problem, I did speak to them, but the ones who were actually able to do something about the problem were some complete different people and then I was too little a drop in the ocean to be able to effect that.

So that was just one of the learnings that I made. That doesn't mean that you can't be successful or you can't make a mark or you can't make a dent in that industry so that maybe someone else that comes to solve the problem after you will have a little bit easier because you already made a dent into that kind of not that moldable industry.

Barrak (05:59)

I think that's so true that, you know, we often think like, you know, as entrepreneurs, we have to be the one that solves the problem. But if we approach it in a more collaborative community, long-term way, we can think about it as like, we're actually just making the path a little bit easier for other people. I think that's also a very healthy way to think about collaboration, connection, and impact. think when we talk about impact, it's often directed towards how can I make an impact within my team? How can my company make an impact rather than thinking about impact as more wide ranging?

Shakila (06:34)

Yeah, and that's very, I think what you just said right now is actually very, very important because we oftentimes make impact in many diverse ways without even knowing it. And that could be not, as you said, like not just in the team, in the industry, but also maybe in the...the people who are aspiring to go in the direction that you are working with. We're also making an impact there at the vendors, at the users. it's very, very broad. And I don't think we are always that aware of that.

Barrak (07:08)

Absolutely. And now I want to talk a little bit more about this idea of failure, because that's something that you have really embraced. You talk about failing in public and you share a lot of that journey. So I'm curious, is so vulnerable about sharing failure in public, especially as an entrepreneur?

Shakila (07:30)

That's a very good question and I'm very happy that you're asking this because I feel like we need to talk a lot more about it than what we do at this point. I think the expectations are, especially because within the tech industry and the startup industry, we are meant to project strength. We are meant to project an image of how things are going and this can be a path to maybe investments or to achieve goals. what we don't, and this is also one of the things that I found out when I came into entrepreneurship is that the picture is not that perfect even though it looks like that from afar when you get into the machine room, right? And I think, the important part is that if we want more people to jump into entrepreneurship, we need to make them feel that they're not alone and that they're not doing things wrong because that is kind of how it is 99 % of the time. Everything is on fire. Nothing is working. And that's kind of like the environment that you have to work in and that's completely normal. So I think it's really, really important that we make that visible to people who are standing on the other side and looking into it from a distance so that they also don't feel that something is wrong with them when they're in the journey. And then I also think that there's also a big, big power in sharing authenticity. it was also something to do with my own journey because

Until that point when I failed that startup, I had not allowed myself to fail. And to be honest, at one point I was very proud of not having failures, but I'm not proud anymore because I think that failures are a part of the journey. They're a big part of the learnings that you make. And if you are really, really good and smart, you start failing early in your life because then you also start learning a lot earlier in your life. So that's like if I had to give myself an advice for when I was 20, I would give myself that advice but I did not allow myself to fail. And so it was also very vulnerable for me to when that actually happened to consider myself as someone who hadn't succeeded with something because I hadn't allowed myself to do that. But now it's a complete different way that I perceive that. And I wish that for other people who are joining this path that they embrace failure because, and it sounds very tacky, but sometimes it's like that's what works because I've heard someone use the phrase like failure is the price of entry. It's like you kind of have to pay that price to get into that exclusive room where all the people who actually doing something are. And once you've paid that price, you're in that room and you'll probably have to pay the price several times. But you're becoming more more exclusive in the room of people who are working and putting all the tools in your toolbox and all the skills that you have to work to get closer to solving that one problem.

Barrak (10:43)

That makes a lot of sense. I, know, in stories, in movies, especially, you kids ones, there's that hero's journey of, you you have to face your fear to overcome it. And one of the main things that entrepreneurs are afraid of is failure. So what did failure in your startup look like? And when you finally faced that, what did that say about what you were afraid of?

Shakila (11:09)

Yeah, that's also a very, very good question. I think the failure in my startup looked mostly like not being able to get funding. So that was kind of one of the things. also, even though that I... So I think for me, it was the path of separating myself from what I do.

So when I had a really, really big problem that I wanted to solve, and I also had really many good credentials to solve it, and then when I couldn't actually get to the point where I could convince the people that could actually give me funding to give me funding, and then I also tried to solve it without the funding where I made some partnerships. And at the end, it just did work out. And what that looked like to me was not so much that it was maybe timing or was lack of resources, but to me at that point it looked like that I was insufficient in some way, that I didn't have it in me. And that's kind of what I had to...

to look into and kind of change the perspective of that it was not only just me. at one point actually what it looked like was that I started to doubt myself so much that I was a little bit like not sure if it actually even happened. I was like, those things happen or did I just make it up in my head?

But then I had one really, really good meeting where I finally found that one person who had decision power to actually do something about it, about the problem, and could go and massage the system even more. And I was out of money already at this time, so I found someone who had the muscles and the software to actually deliver it.

And when they made this agreement that they would start working on this, and I kind of handed the torch to them, that's when it kind of became real to me that this was an actual problem, and it was all of the, and I got validated in all my assumptions, not all of them, but most of them.

Barrak (13:16)

That's brilliant. And I think that also tells me that a lot of the narrative around failure is this idea or this, you know, false narrative around I own everything. I own every part of this and asking for help, sharing the experience, looking for collaboration. Those are all ways of maybe you can't avoid the failure, but actually just like sharing the load, sharing the burden. And I think another thing that I wanted to ask you about is that you've said failure is feedback. Feedback is knowledge and knowledge is power. And I love this. And I just want to know like

Failure can be such an emotional experience and it's hard to step outside of that sometimes, especially when you internalize it and make it about, this is a reflection of who I am. So how do you take a step back and really look at what has happened as data, as information? How do you synthesize that? How do you apply that moving forward?

Shakila (14:14)

That’s s a really good question, especially because there's a whole internal world, the way that you have yourself talk and how you evaluate things and events that happen to you. And sometimes when you are so focused on this journey. And because of that, there's a lot of focus on the negatives. So I think in terms of having some data, think journaling is one way to go about it. If it's something that you can do, I have to admit I'm not that good at doing it myself, but those times when things have been really, really tough and difficult.

I've used that to kind of vent. And then you can reassess that situation afterwards because then your emotional state has changed. That's one way of doing it. Another thing is also that you can have people around you that you can consult and you can speak to about your...assessment of these emotional responses that you have. Because what you will find out is that the way that you are feeling about something that is happening is probably how most people also feel about it. And then you'll figure out that it's not you alone trying to solve a problem or feeling that you're not enough or feeling that you you can't get to your end goal, but it's just every all the founders have like the same Same situation and that can also kind of help you to shift the perspective that's the other thing and then the third thing is that When when I shared my story about failure and how I felt and how vulnerable I felt and also my process about changing my perspective that I felt like I went from feeling like I couldn't succeed and then I went from there feeling that I had made a dent in the industry, right? And when I published this, I had a lot of people come to me both publicly but also in private telling me how they could relate to the situation and how they were all feeling the same way. it's kind of like trying to find that tribe that has the same type of problems so you won't feel so alone with them. And then you'll see that that's kind of just how it is and you have to take responsibility to...find another perspective, a different perspective because the truth of the matter probably is that you feel like that it's really, really hard but from the outside you're extremely powerful and strong because you're wrestling with some very, very big problems and you can't see that from your own perspective so you have to kind of try to figure out a way to shift your vantage point from that internal self-talk and the internal feeling of not being enough because you always feel like that when you're trying to wrestle big problems.

Barrak (17:25)

That's so true. That feeling never goes away, but there's ways to navigate that, actually. I'm also curious, there's always this idea that you have to keep moving forward through failure. Failure is a learning experience, and so you can apply it moving forward. I'm also curious, is there any bold move that you made that didn't pan out, but... a failure you were not able to recover from.

Shakila (17:53)

So what you just said right now about walking through or working forward through a failure, right? I have been doing a lot of work on myself because I was really shocked about my reaction, you know, and I was just like, I have to really figure out what is happening here, you know? And so started working on myself, which is something I would recommend everybody to do basically. And we should start doing this way earlier, you know?

But what I've learned is sometimes you just have to sit with it. Not try to work through it or move forward, just to sit with it and look at it and try to like strip your own emotions away from it. Or just not do that and just look at it and try to understand it and consider it something that is not a part of you but something that you're looking at. And I know this can sound a bit abstract, and it also did when someone suggested to me to do it this way, but it's kind of like separating yourself from it. And again, just sitting with it and thinking about, you know...

Not everything has to be a fight or a process or something that you have to work through. Maybe it's something you will work through in a few years when you have some other tools. Maybe it's something that was just how it was and that was just that part of your chapter and then you just have to accept it.

Barrak (19:21)

Yeah, I love the idea that you don't always have to work through it. Sometimes you have to sit with it. And I think about practices that are really encouraged, like mindfulness meditation, talk therapy, you know, people go to exercise as a way to release. So, you know, all those elements, sometimes you just picking at the problem like a scab doesn't allow it to heal, doesn't allow the break to actually, know, the broken bone to kind of knit together and to heal. So that makes a lot of sense. sometimes you don't tackle, you don't solve the problem over, overcome the problem by dealing with the problem. Sometimes you have to take a step back and reflect on yourself and how you're kind of navigating it. So I love that.

One question I'd like to ask everyone as a way to kind of round out our interview is we like to know what brings you joy in your personal life or in business? What really do you go to that sparks that joy that keeps you motivated?

Shakila (20:19)

That is such a beautiful question. What gives me joy? So, honestly, I really like solving complex problems. But more than that, I love working with people to solve problems. And what gave me joy 10 years ago is not the same thing that gives me joy now.

Ten years ago was really important for me to, you know, solve something or succeed with something or, you know, get that check mark or get that good grade or get that, Now what gives me joy is when I can see that the people around me or my team are like succeeding. If can help them in the direction, if I can inspire them in the direction.

That gives me lot of joy. And it also gives me a lot of joy that we can work together and just laugh. Things don't have to be serious all the time, even though if you work in healthcare and health tech, it's a matter of life and death you're going to be in that industry for so long, have to be able to laugh and have fun. That gives me a lot of joy to be able to create that environment around me.

Barrak (21:30)

That's brilliant. If you're not laughing, if you're not feeling that sense of connection with the people that you're working with, what are you even doing? Thank you so much, Shakila. It was such a pleasure to chat with you and I've learned so much and I'm sure your lessons will carry forward. So thank you.

Shakila (21:47)

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.