FREE PRE-RECORDED CLASS
Keep Creating
Turning setbacks into what’s next
Hard-won lessons from Melissa Bernstein, the creative force behind Melissa & Doug
How do you know when to keep trying, and when it’s time to try something else? Join us for a candid conversation about failure, self-trust, and making the call when the answer isn’t obvious. As cofounder of Melissa & Doug, Melissa Bernstein has spent more than 35 years turning ideas into successful products, and living through thousands that didn’t work. Her biggest lesson became a simple practice for work and life: keep creating.
Melissa Bernstein
Creative Force Behind Melissa & Doug
TAMI SIMON
Founder, Sounds True
7,000 ideas that didn’t work. She kept every one.
Melissa Bernstein has created more than 10,000 ideas over the course of her career. Roughly 3,000 became successful products. The other 7,000 didn’t, and she kept every one of them.
Today, thousands of those ideas still sit behind her. Some came close to working. Some probably never had much of a chance. And some taught her something she could not have learned from the successes alone.
After more than 35 years as the cofounder and Chief Creative Officer of Melissa & Doug, Melissa has learned that getting something right often involves getting a great many things wrong along the way. The important part, she found, is learning to understand what failure is telling you and decide what to do next.
Does this idea deserve another try, or does something need to change? Are you holding on because you still believe in where you’re going, or because you’ve already invested so much in getting there? And how do you learn to tell the difference?
In this candid conversation with Tami Simon, Melissa will share some of the stories behind those questions: an idea she believed in that failed, criticism that stayed with her, a period of real self-doubt, and a time when she had to set aside what she thought she knew and become a beginner again.
Through those stories, you’ll explore a question most of us face at some point in our work and our lives: Do I keep going, or is it time to try something else?
In this free class, you’ll learn:
How to know when to keep going and when to change course, including how to pay attention to what a setback may be telling you rather than seeing it only as something to overcome.
How to stay committed without getting stuck, and recognize the difference between staying true to what matters to you and becoming attached to one particular way of getting there.
How to let go without feeling as though you’ve failed, so that changing an idea, plan, or path doesn’t erase the time, effort, or care you’ve already invested.
How to learn from what didn’t work, carrying the experience, insight, and even the wrong turns with you as you decide what comes next.
How to try again without knowing exactly how it will turn out, using the practice that has carried Melissa through thousands of attempts: learn, adapt, and keep creating.
How to learn from what didn’t work, carrying the experience, insight, and even the wrong turns with you as you decide what comes next.
How to try again without knowing exactly how it will turn out, using the practice that has carried Melissa through thousands of attempts: learn, adapt, and keep creating.
Register for free to receive instant access to this class.
Who this is for…
Is there something you can’t decide whether to keep pushing, or let go?
You don’t need to be an entrepreneur or think of yourself as especially creative to recognize this feeling. Most of us eventually find ourselves facing something we’ve worked hard for, cared about, or invested a great deal of ourselves in, and wondering whether it still makes sense to keep going.
Maybe there’s something in your work you’ve been trying to make work for a long time. Maybe the path that brought you here no longer feels like the one that will take you forward. You may know that something needs to change without being quite sure what that change should be.
And sometimes the hardest part is everything you’ve already put into it. Walking away can feel as though you’re walking away from the years, effort, hope, or experience that came with it.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering whether something deserves one more try or whether it’s time to choose a different way forward, this class is for you.
Register Now:
Meet your hosts
Melissa Bernstein
Creative Force Behind Melissa & Doug
Melissa Bernstein is an entrepreneur, creative, and working mother of six. As cofounder of the wildly successful toy company Melissa & Doug, Melissa has spent the last 30 years helping children discover themselves, their passions, and their purpose through open-ended play. In 2020, after her own personal journey of self-discovery and acceptance, Melissa founded Lifelines. Through Lifelines, she is using her unparalleled creativity and imagination to reinvent well-being products and experiences to help adults strengthen their resilience, stay grounded, and unlock their full potential. Melissa lives in Westport Connecticut with Doug and their children.
TAMI SIMON
Founder, Sounds True
Tami Simon founded Sounds True in 1985 with a clear mission: to disseminate spiritual wisdom. What started as a project with one woman and her tape recorder has grown into a multimedia publishing company that features hundreds of leading teachers and visionaries of our time. Sounds True has produced over 3,000 titles, including events, certification programs, and transformational online learning experiences, and is North America’s leading publisher of spoken-word spiritual teachings. Tami hosts the popular Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge, which has been downloaded more than 15 million times. She is also the founder of the Sounds True Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing spiritual education to people who would otherwise not have access.
What matters most is what you do next.
Even the most successful people get things wrong. They have ideas that don’t work, they doubt themselves, and they hear no.
Over the years, Melissa has come back to one simple practice in those moments: keep creating.
When something fails, you learn from it and keep creating. When the way you’ve always done something stops working, you adapt and keep creating. And when it becomes clear that it’s time to let something go, you take what you’ve learned with you and begin again.
Because sometimes the thing you need to let go of isn’t the dream itself. It’s just the way you thought you were going to get there.
Whatever you’re trying to decide right now, we hope you’ll bring that question with you as you watch this class.
A program by Sounds True
In consultation with the Greater Good Science Center
For more information contact innermba@soundstrue.com
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions
© 2026 Sounds True, Inc. All rights reserved.