I’m writing this post to convince you to go against your natural instincts and try something that my experience tells me many people will avoid.

Yesterday, started a series of interviews on Mixergy on the topic of failure. Tristan and I found founders who are willing to talk candidly about their big setbacks, and we’re going to feature their stories over the next week.

From the beginning of Mixergy I featured failure stories here, but every time I post an interview on the topic, people avoid it in droves. As founders, I think we don’t like to hear failure stories for the same reason acrophobiacs don’t like to look down. We don’t want to imagine failure for fear we might bring it on.

But I’m doing the series despite that because I think it’s good for us.

As you listen to the mistakes these founders made, I bet you’ll see parts of yourself in their stories and I think it’ll help you recognize when you’re making those mistakes and avoid them.

And when you hear how they got over their mistakes, I know you’ll get advice that will help you in your biggest times of need.

I’ll end this post by asking you to trust me with a recommendation. Listen to my interview with James Altucher. By the end of the interview, I’m confident you’ll feel that it’ll have a big positive impact on your life and I think you’ll see why I keep saying, “Mixergy is a mission, not a web site.”