Courage and personal resilience - Failure is an incident, not an identity

My son John and I are directly involved in helping entrepreneurial enterprises cope with the current turmoil, but difficulties for individuals are not confined to the private sector. I am aware of many public sector employees who are also under serious financial stress due to their involvement in speculation.



On top of all the European property investment it is estimated that up to 10,000 Irish people are exposed, badly exposed, to the Dubai debacle and not all of these are "rash entrepreneurs".


Whatever our occupation, the core underpinning of effective response to current problems must be courage and personal resilience. Do not let an incident or incidents of failure swamp you.


This true story of an incident from some years ago when John and I were struggling to raise capital to save a business illustrates the point.


We were on the 16th floor of some of the most expensive real-estate in London, sitting in an oak-paneled boardroom at a massive table under crystal chandeliers.


The public school, Harvard-educated venture capitalist, whom I will call Henry, pried and probed in a very condescending intimidating way, but still John answered courteously and
capably to every question – except what proved to be the last.



“I recognise that your company has a strong IP position and the financial prospects look good. So good that we feel comfortable in considering an investment. But you failed to complete your last deal, so I have to ask myself ‘Why I should invest in failures like you people?’.”


John jumped to his feet, threw the pencil he was holding at Henry and, with passion, told him that, yes, we had failed with that deal, yes, we had failed at many things and yes, we would fail at many things in the future, but he was not going to sit there and let us be called failures.
We didn’t get the investment.



On the way down in the mirrored elevator, I assured John that I agreed with every word he had uttered and that he should never allow anyone to call him a failure, but: “Son, you shouldn’t have thrown the pencil at Henry”.
John looked me in the eye and spat out: “Will, I wish it had been a brick!”.



We failed to get Henry’s money, but we roared with laughter – and we were certainly not failures.


Failure is an incident, not an identity. Whatever your current personal stresses; remember that - and press on.