Hundreds of famous people have failed over and over again, only to succeed. Some like Thomas Edison failed tens of thousands of times in the pursuit of over 1000 patents. Failure is THE indicator of success. If you look at some of the most famous innovators of the last 100 years, most of them had long stretches of failures and set-backs before they found success.
I have had many failures in life but I have also had many success, albeit many of them have been insignificant to the world around me, but successes nonetheless. Many of these successes have been deeply personal: Overcoming fears, changing habits, mending old wounds. These successes have had an incredible affect on my life. I cannot imagine life without having found them.
But something has been missing. For too long I have felt like a failure when it came to the more outward facing aspects of my life. So many ideas, relationships, and opportunities, that while worthwhile, never found realization due to many different reasons. It is likely that the majority of these opportunities were simply lost to lack of sharing and providing the inspirational spark for others. Sometimes doing something is less important than inspiring others to make something happen!
Some would argue this is just the way life is meant to be. Shit happens. But I am not sure I am ready to accept that. I think every man, woman and child has to find a way to both provide inspiration for others as well as find inspiration for themselves.
It is easy in the midst of failure to point at some aspect of our lives and say, “That is what is causing me to fail!”. This is crap. This is self pity in its worst form. This is feeling sorry for ourselves.
My grandfather always told me that when you are feeling depressed and full of self-doubt, go help someone. DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE! It has taken me 37 years to figure it out, but this is foundational to ensuring success for anyone, but most importantly for myself. If we live only to serve ourselves, we are bound to always fail and never succeed.
I am convinced that success comes through not only dreaming big, but making sure that when you dream big, you try your best to rally those around you to go big as well. This means sharing. This means being open to collaboration. This means going big with others pushing you forward and you reciprocating.
Why all this talk of success, failure and going big?
Well, it is with this vein of thought that I will push forward with rebuilding the TMG Studio website. The new goals of the site will be to promote and facilitate thinking big in a very practical way. Throwing ideas out there for anyone to grab hold of and run with. Providing inspiration for everyone that you come into contact with. Finding inspiration in collaborating with others. Making a difference in the world around me.
More than anything, I want this site to be a reflection of what I strive for the world to be and not who I am.
We have all heard the saying, “working to live”. Well I am here to let the world know that I want to live first and work second.
Stay tuned for more updates in the days to come!
