I have not failed; I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work

“I have not failed; I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work!” - Thomas A. Edison

Failure is a bit of a dirty word in Irish society. The fear of failure is the main reason that people do not take a risk and open up their own business. “But what if it fails?” is what is said when you tell some people of your plans. What if it did? Is it really the end of the world? I never got on well working in a regular job. When I was twenty, a friend and I opened up a Martial Arts store in Cork City. Those two years were crazy! The store closed in the end, but the experience I gained from it was immense. People would say that the lesso
I should have learned from that was it was a bad idea and I believed them for a while. It took a good number of years for me to realise that it was really just another step on the ladder that I had to take towards a better me.
Another time I went out on my own was when I became a TAXI driver. When I got into it first, it was really a golden job. I could just drive for 8 hours non-stop finishing up with two weeks wages on one Saturday night. But slowly the work got less and less. I tried to do things that might get me more revenue. But it was not working out in the way I wanted it to at a fast enough pace. There was the possibility that if I opened up a TAXI Base myself that I could make a bit better of a living and give some other guys driving with me something to get by also. Then I really looked at the whole idea and realised that my heart was not in it. It was time to let go and do something that I really wanted to do.
My eureka moment came at 5am on a Sunday morning early December 2011. I had sat in the car for 4 hours straight without work, really only burning diesel to keep myself warm. The money making machine had become the most expensive heater I’d ever owned. That was the last time I ever drove the TAXI again. Letting go is one of the hardest things to do in life. We put so much into businesses or jobs that we do not realise that they are holding us back or killing us. It can even go to the point where people will go down with their sinking ship. One of my mentors has a nice analogy on this. – If we are walking down the stairs holding onto the handrail and the handrail starts to come away from the wall causing us to lose our balance and fall. For some crazy reason people will keep holding onto the handrail even they are going pull it right off the wall and hurt them even more when it all lands on us at the end of the stairs.
When you have decided to follow your life passion, do not be put off by any walls or diversions. Deal with them and keep on moving towards your goal. It’s easy for us to give up at the first block we meet. But these blocks are really like a filter to keep out the people who really don’t have the drive in them to follow through with their desires. Now you can deal with a block in a few ways. Either you take it down, cut a hole through it or go around it. Each one will have its own demands; your job is to keep trying until you find the one that works for you.
So keep on trying and failing, because it is the true path to success.
Do Chara,
Paul Oliver O'Leary