Kim Kardashian is embracing her flop era. You should too.

If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber. Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a modern status or success metric like Kim Kardashian, the 'self-made' (I mean, citation needed on that term, but for the purpose of this argument, let's roll with it) billionaire icon who has transformed a notorious private life into a public-facing, multi-billion-dollar corporate empire.

SKIMS, her shapewear brand, has morphed from celebrity vanity project to logistics and design powerhouse, currently valued at over $4 billion (that's $6.1 billion in AUD) and expanding globally faster than most established fashion houses.

The cinch-waisted entrepreneur boasts a social media following that dwarfs most nations, and her name alone is a globally recognised, nine-figure business asset. She has parlayed fame into fortune with relentless, calculated ambition and, whatever you think of her personal ethics, her place at the table as an icon of industry is indisputable. 

Watch Mamamia's Laura Brodnik, host of The Spill, interviewing Kim Kardashian on her new show, All's Fair. Post continues below.

That's why the recent news — that she failed the rigorous California Bar Exam after previously failing the 'baby bar' (a first-year law student exam) three times — came as such a palate cleanser.

And I say this not from any sense of schaudenfreude, but from a genuine appreciation for someone sharing their failure while they're in it, rather than in the context of a success story. 

In this cult of capitalist hustle culture — of which Kim Kardashian is surely at least a high priestess if not the leader — it's so common to hear the concept of failure co-opted into just another rung on the ladder to abundance. 

Celebrities and business leaders seem to think it's somehow revolutionary to admit their low points, forgetting that sharing it from the other side of that project's seven-figure success severely diminishes both the vulnerability and bravery it's supposed to convey. 

For Oprah, sharing the oft-quoted tale of how she was once deemed 'unfit for TV' from the safety of her proven global television domination doesn't damage our impression of her success, but offers the kind of 'keep pushing no matter what' advice that only really hits when the giver has achieved unbridled success. 

Kim Kardashian's Instagram story. Image: Instagram/ @kimkardashian.

We love reading about the private battles celebrities fought and won, years after the fact, when they release a memoir admitting they were actually undergoing stints in rehab while starring in some of our favourite films, but again — hindsight provides a vulnerability buffer that separates both them and us from the emotion of it.

It's why we're drawn to these rare moments of authenticity from celebs.

It takes so much more guts to call out from the trough before you've hit the peak and admit that it's not working.

It's something we see time and again in non-celebrity circles, too. We tend to share our successes so readily, but it's only a very select circle who get the 3am text of doom, admitting we're feeling lost.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've felt compelled to put a positive spin on a particularly hard moment in my life, perhaps because I feel awkward inviting someone to simply sit in the uncertainty with me — even when that uncertainty is my own.

And sure, when Kim took to her Instagram stories to admit she didn't pass, her language was couched in the same kind of #girlboss toxic positivity she's come to be known for ("falling short isn't failure, it's fuel," she declared), but the frankness with which she shared the news and her resolve to try again hits different when you hear it from someone so used to winning.

For more on Kim Kardashian's flop era, listen to the latest episode of Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues below.

As a woman who has little to prove to anyone but herself, Kim's determination to succeed at something so difficult is admirable.

The fact that she's embracing her 'flop era', sharing the news with a public only too eager to see her fail, is, I think, even braver.

Because while passing the bar exam might not come easy to Kim, we know influencing people does.

And if the same people who could be influenced to buy a faux-pube-covered g-string at $49 could summon the courage to reach out while they were going through something, rather than after the fact — well then, maybe a trusted friend could step in before they made the hairy purchase. 

Feature image: Instagram/ @kimkardashian.