Because you only fail if you never try

This week I’ve been asked to answer a few questions for a product I’m developing and found myself not being able to answer any of them.  How can this be, I post daily and share all aspects of my life to the public with my weekly blogs, but here I sit staring at a blank page.  

So like any other problem I encounter, I give myself the week to sit with it and find something in my day to inspire me and then I write.  Today felt like a good day but I couldn’t seem to find music that flowed with the work I was doing, I kept changing genres and volume to get me in my zone.  It almost seemed impossible, maybe because I knew I had these questions to answer and my blog to write but I noticed a friend had shared a song she was listening to, so I listened and it was Dustan O’halloran Opus 38 and at that moment whatever unease I had stopped.  

I relaxed and picked up my brush and continued to paint, then the next song played and another suggestion came through and I enjoyed listening to something that someone else enjoyed listening to.  It got me out of my head.

This week is my unaltered story and vision of me that created this product that I will soon get to share.  

We all have ideas and I’ve had many since I was 5, I’ve always had this natural ability to lead, create, adapt and survive.  I loved to take things apart and figure out how they work and fix them.  I always wanted to invent things but at some point I guess I convinced myself that was a fairy tale dream.

No matter how much I defeated myself in the past I still believed that I was capable of greatness, that I was going to create something big.  Every Idea I’ve come up with had the potential for success but I always stopped myself.

Yes I was that typical person that feared success and it took this past year to even recognize that was one of my problems.  Really it was resentments and a belief I wasn’t talented enough to compete.  So 2 years ago I was sitting in my bed staring at my sneakers on the floor and like a lightening bolt I received this image.  I saw the function, look, dimensions, colors, and I started sketching it out, then I grabbed my computer and the name came to me, then the logo design came to me.  All with the feel of sharing your individual creativeness.

The whole package all at once and on paper in less than a few hours.  

Wow, all I could think was this was another gift and I can’t waste it like the others.  I mostly kept in hidden and didn’t share but I couldn’t do much with it until I had money to invest in it, preferably my own.  That proved difficult the first year and even with a few investor options things just didn’t get started.  Looking back on it now I’m glad it didn’t, because I wasn’t ready.

Last year I ended up in Australia and found myself in a partnership agreement and thought this was it, but after a few months and no real progress I decided this arrangement wasn’t a good fit.  Then I got a call from Shark Tank and met a prototype guy in Melbourne and I truly believe this chance encounter saved my idea.  It allowed me to slow down and not look for a fix out of desperation but to trust in me, to trust that it will happen they way its supposed to happen if I let it.

 So I did, and I had to just wait.  I was patient and went back to NY in July, scheduled a mtg with a friend/mentor to ask for advice and guidance.  A few months later I was now able to hire her company to develop and create a pitch deck for my product.

 Today we have come up with a new name and I now have a product developer and have had more than 20 designers do a creative brainstorming session with me twice now and it was amazing.  

I’ve had responses that it’s a great idea and they want to jump on board to people saying it’s stupid and could care less if I need to be on a conference call for it, the point is there will always be adversity.  I will not let the bad outweigh the good. 

I believe in it and if I could put just half of my good energy in it, then it’s gonna do just fine.  

Everything I’ve got is going into this and it may fail; but I haven’t.

It may fail - yes like anything in life, my idea may bomb and not sell.  It might take even longer than expected to create it, who knows.  But what will not fail is me.

I will not fail this time because I’m not giving up on it.  In the past I would have just stopped and started something new.

So today's inspiration came via Facebook and allowed me to stopped and listen to something beautiful someone else created, to listen to something that someone took the time out to share with me. Thank you Mel 

So The Winner is Me - DeVotchka (Little Miss Sunshine)

This song has no words, but it allowed me to sit and see the last few years of my story unfold in my head to music. It put a smile on my face. 

I can't describe with words the freedom and success that comes from surrender.  When I surrendered, I let go of my fears, my attitude changed because I wasn't protecting myself anymore, I wasn't scared of anything really because I was now okay with the unknown. 

So pick one thing you find yourself never completing and just try, then tell yourself "You got this!."

Because you only fail if you never try.

Mucho Love, Jamie