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"The passion that you feel is God inside of you beckoning you to take the risk and be your own person."
-Wayne Dyer |
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"What follows is a long, long list of the failures, embarrassments, mistakes, rejections and hard spots I suffered in the beginning years of my career. This is not to say that I'm in the clear now, but the first steps are the hardest and I think people who have "made it" oughta be more candid about their failings so that those just starting toward their orgasmic-ideal, any dream-endeavor, clearly see that success is most often the result of a lot of failures. (Plus, we ought not take ourselves too seriously - please feel free to laugh).
- Went on stage and forgot to power on the microphone clipped to my belt. Went to power it on quickly, while the audience was watching, and the mic fell from my belt to the floor, crashing down loudly. Not a good first impression! I must have seemed like Gilligan.
- For the fourth year in a row, I didn't get selected for a National Showcase. You should have seen how great my video and brochure were this year! Oh well, at least this year I didn't get totally shut out. I got two regional showcase.
- The house sound system blew a fuse an hour into my talk, and I had no back up system in place. The rest of the talk was difficult to hear.
- Was told by a well respected agent and editor that my story writing lacks voice. Ouch, that hurt! I am, however, quickly moving to correct the weakness.
- Spoke to a group of all agriculture students. Failed to establish enough in common with them, and never quite won them over.
 - Didn't establish rapport with my audience because I changed my introduction and failed to recognize the true importance of first giving your audience a reason to care about you. I naively thought a couple good jokes would establish rapport. Wrong.
- Put Tom Peter's endorsement on the cover of my revised book, and then mailed it to him a shiny new copy. His office called immediately to say, "Tom doesn't allow his endorsement to be put on the front cover of books. In your next edition you have to take it off." (I wasn't made aware of this when Tom originally gave me the endorsement but I feel so embarrassed).
- Almost, almost, almost got a big important speaking gig, but lost it to someone else in the final hour.
- Made the big gigantic mistake of chastising a man in my audience in front of every one. I did it out of frusteration that he let his walkie talkie interrupt the program twice. My chastising cast a negative spell over the audience. Should have done it with a sense of humor.
- Wasn't able to hook my computer up to the projector, and didn't yet have a back up set of overheads.
- Invited to do weekly guest appearances on a AM radio show. My first segment went great. I guess my next two were lacking because I was canned after three.
- Got a message from a literary agent, "Patrick, we're schedule to meet tomorrow, but i just read your stuff and there's no need for us to meet. Uhm, yeah it's not something I'd want to represent. Hope you get this message before you show up to my office."
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