Overview

"Before You Quit Your Day Job" is a must for anyone who wants to give themselves and their startup idea, the best chance of business success, without risking their career, reputation or
relationship.

"Before You Quit Your Day Job" is written for you, the experienced professional, who has been thinking about building that great business idea. But building a new venture can be very challenging. You should strive to maximise your chances of success, whilst also protecting your life, career & family from the risks of building a great venture. There's a lot at stake, and a lot to lose if you don't get it right - probably more than you realise.

The good news is that an "Experienced Professional" has a substantially greater chance of creating a successful venture, (2-4 x compared to an inexperienced graduate), once they get into motion. However most never start because they can't find the right help to address the risks associated with their life & obligations, such as "spouse, children and mortgage".

This is not a book about business structures, tax planning, or 50 page business plans. Like any structure, building a great venture is all about first building a solid foundation.

And I share how to do that by going against conventional thinking, showing you how to act strategically using innovation and use contrarian-thinking, to:-

• Map out a success strategy that works for you, from where you are, and with what you have available to you right now
• Maximise your 'success factors', like expertise, connections, credibility, industry/domain
  experience, seed capital, know-how and track-record.
• Mitigate your personal risk factors (such as personal and business runway), and your professional risk factors (like career and reputation),
• Leverage your networks and connections even whilst you remain "under the radar",
• Not make basic amateur mistakes that we, as mentors and investors, see everyday, and
• Focus on the 10 key "Pillars" of real-world business design, that make the difference between failure and "Massive Success".

And I'll guide you through the 42 hidden "Laws of Venture Success" that I've discovered along the way, that will help prevent you from learning them like I did - the hard way. Each and every one of them is the length of a tweet, and if followed, will lead you on to certain success.

Throughout the book, I'll share the wisdom and stories of success with you, of other great entrepreneurs and mentors that I've met along the way, who just happen to be a little further along the journey than you.

Below is a the first 2 sample chapters from the book, which contains quite a few "hidden gems", to inspire you to commit yourself to your "journey of purpose".

And I'll be following up in quick succession with 2 sequels, to help you strategise & prepare for what happens during and "After you quit your day job".

So whether you dream of building a worldwide massive success, or creating a great venture that gives you back your time and your life, I'll show you how to "Break Free", and become that great entrepreneur that you've always imagined.

"There is no such thing as failure, only learning how to succeed, whether in this venture or the next."

Due to a small platform bug, I've included an expanded 1st Chapter, plus the Prologue here for you to review (and share) before making the decision to pre-order

Introduction

Firstly, congratulations on taking the first step in the risk to follow your passion. Yes there are many things that have to align in order to create a successful venture, but part of being a successful entrepreneur - or what I call a "Visionary" - is about seeing opportunities before they exist, which is what you are now starting to do.

Let's have a conversation, you & I, about how you would like your life to look and how it's going so far.
• Are you where you expected? Have you "changed the world" yet?
• Or have you got a little "side-tracked"?
• Or worse, has life 'beaten you down' until you've become a shell of your former-self?
• Or have you "hit it out of the park" in your current career.
• Or perhaps you are exactly where you expected to be at this point in your life .

And at different times in my own life, I've been all of these.

But you are thinking about this book, possibly because there's something missing. An expectation that you were meant for something more? That there's a 'thing' inside you that you must do?

In any case, it's OK. There's still time.

There is a great variety of wisdom around what it takes to create a great business
• Some say that good ideas are everything when it comes building a great business.
• Others say that without great founders, nothing will happen.
• And others are of the belief that "execution is everything".
• And some (including myself) recognise that no venture can ultimately succeed without great guidance.

So which one is accurate? In fact, all of the above are true.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs often lack the vision around a market or audience, but may have the technical capacity or desire to be a venture founder. Others have that 'great idea', but not all the skills, resources or capacity. Still others have the necessary deep domain expertise and market knowledge, but not the knowledge necessary to create the service delivery mechanism. (These are often equally true whether the venture is entrepreneurial or intra-preneurial).

And there-in lies the challenge.

It's rare that a single person already has everything that they require to achieve "success".

So why expect to "do it all" and "know it all"?

Most 'great ideas' could become successful businesses, if you find the right support, at the right time. I believe that the best ideas come from people with deep domain & life experience and connections, who've circled around the problems of their profession for many years.

They know how to 'get stuff done', & probably had to overcome a few 'life challenges', so you don't need to 'teach' them resilience; these attributes together are the hallmarks of great entrepreneurs. But they've often got risks that hold them back from starting on the path to success.

Just like you have.

That's where I come in. It's my job to help you fill in the blanks, make you aware of the risks, and help you chart a course that get you to your destination.

We'll do that by guiding you through the key learning that I've taken away from my 15 ventures, as an investor, mentor & advisor to startups, from my 20 years in corporate business and from my learning from wise mentors. And from the life of challenge that I've lived, of which I'll share a little of below.

And I should forewarn you; I started my career in the building industry, dealing with builders and architects, so I'll use quite a few 'building' metaphors throughout the book.

Before we get cracking into the topics, in the first chapter, I'm going to address some of the most common misconceptions about startups, just to 'clear the site'.

But before we do that, I'm going to tell you the first of the "rules of the game" to succeed at a new startup venture. My focus is "digital, scalable, & disruptive", but these rules are universal to almost any business.

“The Laws" (there are 42 of them) are throughout the book. By the way, rules are meant to be broken, but if you break these Laws, (as with most laws) you'll often pay a terrible price. So by all means, bend or break the rules but not my laws.

The First Law is as simple as child's play.

"Always have fun in what you are doing". See? Simple.

If you are going to do something for a while, either have fun doing it, or make it fun, whatever it is. In fact, if you can't do either of these, then Stop.... Turn around, and do exactly the opposite of what you are doing now, because at least that has a chance of being more fun, and take you closer to where you are trying to get to, than what you are now doing.

"Surely the most important law can't be that simple?"

Yes, it is. As adults, we over complicate things. When you were a kid and your best friend knocked on the door and asked you to come and play, did you stop to ask them questions?
• "What sort of activity will we be involved in and for how long will my time commitment be?"
• "What is the renumeration package & benefits?"
• "Will it be structured, organised play, according to best practice industry standards?"

No. When you were a kid, "play" was fun. So is life. Don't forget that.

Somewhere along the line, most of us forgot that. Some of try & get it back with bigger, newer shinier toys, but is that really fun?

Remember the last time that you heard a child scream in laughter because they were being tickled by a loved one? They say one thing, "Stop It", but all their behaviours and actions tell you that they want the continue sensations. That unbridled emotion, expressed in any way that the child could; through movement, touch, emotion, sound and content. And when you stop, often they say "do it again, daddy".

That's what I mean by "fun". The moment. Pure, unadulterated, happiness.

Who made the rule that no longer allowed us to feel like that as adults?

So I'm reclaiming that rule back for us grown-ups too.

Who wants to play?

“But am I really an Entrepreneur?"

After you've done a couple of startups (whether successful or otherwise), you quickly learn whether this is in your blood.

I'm not sure for me whether its thrill, risk, challenge, opportunity, or belonging that is the strongest motivator. After speaking with many other people of my 'tribe', it's pretty clear that all of these play a part in the decision of those of us that stay 'in the game'. For most of us, it's something we were born to do.

I also believe we are the product of our environments, and are a breed apart from the freedom seeking (but structure requiring) traditional entrepreneurs, like the typical small business person or franchisee.

There are similarities, yes. But substantial differences too. The franchisee seeks a brightly-lit highway to follow, whereas for us, a dim, hardly-trod path is enough.

For them, the pre-existing tools, the certainty of outcomes, and the mechanics of the process. This book might not be for that person.

So let me also make a distinction:- I don't think startup entrepreneurs made or born. They are forged, like the process of making a sword.

For us, like the explorers of the new world, a glimmer of opportunity, a faint light of hope, and the stories of the path ahead from our fellow travellers, is often enough.

Small wonder that many of us never quite make it to journey's end. And yet, that is part of the promise – upon which we could succeed, where others before us have failed.

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -Lao Tzu

"All of life is a journey: which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there." -Unknown

Don't Gamble on Your Future

I enjoy poker. I like watching. I like playing. I like playing with friends. I like books on poker, and I like good poker stories with friends.

Poker is not gambling. Its equal parts art, science, psychology, maths, bravado, skill & luck.

Just like business is. Just like life is.

Poker requires that you play the hand you are dealt, but unlike the game of life, in poker, you can fold & choose to play another hand if you don't like your cards.

If you choose to play a hand (often because you think you can win), typically you'll come up against another player with the same opinion; either that they have the best hand, or they believe they can read the other players better than they can read. You are then in sequence of events which will require you to back your cards with action, or fold.

Within that sequence of events, at some point, you will be required to bet your stake, called "going all-in". You do the math - the odds of you having a better hand than your competitors- and what card still to be shown might give the final winning hand. You try to read the other players to see if you can determine if they are bluffing. You re-evaluate the sequences of past bets to calculate what their likely cards could be and you look back on their past behaviours from previous hands to determine whether they are exhibiting similar behaviours now.

It's at this point that you have decision. You can fold, and live to play another hand, you can 'call", and see who has the better hand, (and perhaps be forced to match an 'all-in' bet) or you can go "all-in", in the hope that the other player will fold.

Here's where it gets interesting. In poker, you are playing a person or small group of people, against which you've got some past history & experience -let's call it a small set of variables.

In the game of business, at this same point, the set of variables is exponentially larger. Suddenly you are at a much larger table, playing against much more experienced competitors, most of whom have much larger piles of chips at their disposal. They have better advisors, deeper pockets, larger pools of expertise, & more years of experience playing this game.

And there are variables like customers, the market, other alternatives, a dynamic marketplace, the clarity of your message. As well, there are other risks like regulation, competition, strategy, execution -and a thousand other factors, many of which are beyond your control - which will affect the likelihood of the success of your venture.

But 'I have this feeling in my gut', you say?

"The idea is brilliant, no-one knows more about it, I believe in the product/offering/solution and I know I can make it work."

Of course you do. That's why you are having a go. But that just how you get you seat at the table -it's your 'ante'; the price of playing. It has little however to do with your ultimate success beyond that.

The 'Player' who bring just that, will quickly be stripped of their chips in this high-stakes game.
If you want to win, once the cards are dealt, you better be packing a great hand, or an innate ability to read people, or an incredible capacity to bluff, or a solid expectation of what's in your opponents hand, based on math. Or better yet, all of the above.

So do you 'call', fold, or go 'all-in'?

Here's the rule (#2 of my "42 Laws of Startup Success") that I learned the hard way - twice.
"Never bet more than you can afford to lose."

So what are you betting?
• Your house? (You borrowed against your mortgage)
• Your relationship? (You swore to your wife/husband/ partner that this would work)
• Your career? (you quit your day job before this venture can afford to pay you)
• Your reputation? (you burned bridges with colleagues and competitors alike)
• Your children's college/university fund?
• Your future earning capacity?
• The respect of peers/colleagues/ competitors?

I could go on, but you get the picture by now.

"I would never, never do any of those", you are now saying?

A professional never would. And yet, most amateurs & rookies do many or all of the above, and far worse. On occasion, so have I.

'Amateurs' might be tempted to borrow money from family & friends, or bet those personal relationships. They might bet their relationships with friends and business partners, by overstating the value of the venture, or their faith in their ability to overcome the insurmountable.

Some, horrendously, will even bet their integrity by borrowing money from "less than reputable" sources, or worse, stealing it. (I kid you not, I have seen it). Or they may have stolen contacts/customers from their previous employer, in order to setup in competition, or 'stolen' someone else's intellectual property in the belief that they can out-execute them.

And people who engage in these sorts of activities, almost invariably lose.

And for people like this, who really haven't figured out the rules of the game, they not only cost themselves success in this venture, they'll y lose all their chips, AND also their capacity to play again. Whether by loss or reputation or capacity, they do themselves out of the ability to build that next venture, or the ones after that, or partner with others.

Professionals do none of those things. They don't gamble. They do take calculated risks designed to minimise the downside, & maximise the upside.

That's Rule #3 - "Figure out how to 'stay in the game' between ventures."

Do you know how many ventures it takes, on average, to succeed? 5-14 ventures for the normal entrepreneur (whatever that is), until they hit massive "success" (whatever that is for you).

Do you really believe the stories about the first timer who struck it on his first time at bat? If so, go back & re-read that line, until that number is indelibly etched into your brain. Those stories make the news because they are outliers; the exception that proves the rule.

So why you would risk everything on "one roll of dice"? Are you an amateur? A gambler?

Or are you a professional?

Good. I knew you'd come to right conclusion.

But there might be couple of people reading this book, that aren't yet convinced.

How do you know that what I'm highlighting is real & valid?

Perhaps you have the maturity, foresight & wisdom to learn from other peoples' mistakes?

Sometimes when you learn lessons from life, you only have a dataset of 1. But how many data sets do you need to learn a pivotal lesson?

Let me highlight a real-world case study of what can happen when you bet more than you can afford to lose -and the implications.

I found this section incredibly difficult to write, and originally left it out of the 1st draft of the introduction altogther. But I realised, with the guidance of wise mentors, that it was important, because it sets the context of the book for you. And shows why I am exactly the right person to help you in your journey

So let me paint you a picture of my life after a series of venture failures.

Challenges & difficulties in your life?
Imagine – all of these events happening to you, within a 4-month period. Imagine stripping away your entire life, social supports, friends, family and all the other constructs by which you measure your life. Tell me how you would fare?

• Two ventures that you've each put 3 years of your life into, both fail due to external circumstances beyond your control.
• A bad choice of business co-founders, leads to unresolvable conflict in a venture
• A career attempt at a high political office that falls just a few '000 votes short, ultimately costing years of lost effort.
• Your relationship falls apart, and you are left without a home, career or even cash in the bank.
• The employment marketplace considers you unemployable, despite more than 250 job applications to positions for which you are highly qualified for.
• One of your children is diagnosed with cancer, and given almost no chance of survival,

o To then spend the next 2 years in hospital, in & out of intensive care, eventually becoming a paraplegic, all whilst you are powerless to help.

• And at the same time, a devastating divorce & family court battle that
? Strips you of all your accumulated assets, leaving you hopelessly broke and $200,000 in debt,

o And which removes your parental access to the child that you've raised since birth.

Imagine trying to find your way back from that, emotionally and financially; to rebuild after all this, without support or resources, or even the capacity to help yourself.

How would you cope with it? Learn from it? Recover from it? Rebuild anew from it? Arise from it?

I don't have to imagine -I've lived it.

And yet, after all of that, I still probably the most inspired & optimistic person you are ever likely to meet. For one very simple reason, which I've save for the last paragraph of this chapter.

If after reading that last section, you are not moved, then perhaps this life of entrepreneurship isn't for you. Perhaps it's time to put aside your vision of your business future. Because that story is real. Real events, real emotions, real outcomes.

And it's from those events that move us, that the major progressions of life take place.

Exactly like (but different to) the events that you will experience. Pain, turmoil, challenge, adversity, hope and occasionally, joy and success.

Some say that “Hope is not a strategy". I say “there is no Strategy without hope". (That's Law #22)

So now it's time for your first decision.

Some of you will heed my words, and step back, realising that perhaps the price you are preparing to pay is too high. To you- well done. You'll have kept your options open. This decision isn't permanent, and you can change your mind at any time in the future.

For some of you, who will ignore my guidance, who will press on regardless, I expect will also fail and & be forced to put it all aside, permanently.

For those of you in this group, I wish you luck. - you are going to need it.

And for most of you that have made it this far, you have now chosen the path of the professional -one of wisdom. You'll want to review your plans, think through the implications of the venture on those around you, and on your future, review the timelines & milestones, re-evaluate the risks, have open conversations, seek new guidance and wisdom, and push ahead with a new & re-considered vision.

If this is you, “Well done". Today is the first day of the rest of your life. The rest of this book is dedicated to you.

That's what I'm here to help you with. That is why I've gone through the journey I have – to learn the things that I needed to learn, so that I have the experience and learning to guide you on your journey.

"To your success" - Daniel"

"There is no such thing as failure, only learning how to succeed, whether in this venture or the next." - Daniel Mumby

"Everything we enjoy in society is a direct result of the accumulated learning derived from millions of mistakes. No mistakes, no progress. Yet we still look at making a mistake as embarrassing, wrong, an act bordering on sin. If you're making mistakes, it means you're doing new things, taking risks, stretching yourself. You're growing, learning. And isn't the journey, the experience, not the destination, what life is all about?" -Robert White

Prologue

Resilience in the life of a person is a hard thing to quantify. It's not something that can be measured on any test, predicted in advance, demonstrate in a CV, nor capitalised on a balance sheet. There are no industry associations for resilient people, or awards nights for "Most Resilient Entrepreneur".

In fact, the only place that you can 'earn' resilience is through failure. Or more appropriately, you can only learn how to be resilient by recovering from failure.

Resilience in a structure is an easy thing to measure, test and design for. In a building, resilience comes from its ability to withstand very strong or extreme events such hurricanes. The capacity to flex or bend, rather than remain rigid or stiff, is an inherent engineering principle built into each structure's design. The strength of any building starts from its foundations. Build a structure on weak footings, and its time is limited. The strength of materials used in, and the depths of the foundations, also play a large part in the resilience of any structure.

In people, the capacity for resilience is built following failure, manifested in how you respond to and learn from failure's outcomes, and in recovering from its effects. There is an old saying (Japanese, I think) which epitomises it exactly. "Fall down seven times, get up eight".

Resilience is about drawing on your capacity to dig deep when things don't go 'by the book'. And in the business of venture risk, despite what you might hear, there really is no playbook for recovery, though you can find clues and hints in the stories of many successful people. It is called 'character'.

Like the steel of a sword, it's in the events that forge them, from which the character is defined which truly determines their resilience. So in order to truly understand some-one's character, you must have a sense of where they have come from.

So perhaps the best way to explain is to demonstrate what I mean, in the real world, from the only story that I really and truly know -my own.

2008 was my year. Stellar successes, and opportunities coming at me literally almost daily. At the beginning of 2008, I had left my corporate career behind years earlier, swearing never to return. I had 2 modestly successful ventures running, was developing 2 others, and was leveraging the profile that 3 successful not-for-profit ventures which I was involved in, were bringing me.

Plus, I was a new dad, with all the responsibilities that caring for a newborn baby brings. By the way, I relished fitting into the role of being a work-from-home dad, and saw it as the most important task I would ever be involved in. For me, fitting in the responsibilities of being the primary carer for a newborn, in and around being an entrepreneur, was like a duck taking to water - natural, effortless and joy-filled.

But I digress - in that year, the seeds were also sown for abysmal and abject failures. Without warning, the primary supplier of my cash generating business (selling motorcycle accessories online) went broke, leaving me with a terrible hole to fill. With no obvious replacement available, that business ceased to subsidise my other activities, which were many & varied. It also put a substantial strain on our own personal finances, the implications of which, I failed to fully acknowledge at the time.

In 2007, my involvement as head of a Not-For-Profit community organisation, had caused me to seek a solution in addressing a substantial local problem - the lack of fast, reliable and affordable internet access in new local communities. After exhausting all lobbying & commercial avenues, I discovered a technology solution which lead me to developing a viable business model. I was also running a web-design & consultancy and business supporting local small businesses, so the leap to a new field in a known market was not insurmountable in my mind.

So with a local business partner, I started a wireless broadband business, to provide internet access in metropolitan 'blackspots' just like mine (of which there were many). Broadband was a hot topic at the time, with the recently elected Federal Labour government pushing their NBN 'solution' with all the fervour of a religious zealot. I acknowledged the risk that this venture represented, so I was aware of my need to have another 'iron in the fire'.

This timing of seemed to dovetail nicely with my part-time involvement as marketing manager, in planning and building a new venture with a friend, in exchange for equity. They held the rights to make and commercialise a healthy ice-cream. "Really", you say? Well, about as healthy as a fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, allergen-free ice-cream could be. We had a prototype product that tasted great, had the right endorsements, financial backing, and willing suppliers and channel customers (many are names that you'd know).

Having two potential winning horses in the race, I let my other businesses wane. In hindsight, probably not very prudent, but in later half of 2008, it looked as though I had a piece of 2 winning formulas, and a public profile (from my involvement in 3 not-for-profit ventures) strong enough to leverage either (or perhaps both) of them to success. In amongst this, I was living & loving the role that many mothers play in the daily raising of a young child.

Then, in late 2008, I lost my father. Whilst not a successful man in any traditional sense, he had been my role model for how to behave as a man, a father and person of integrity & intelligence, and he had always been my sounding board - my 'voice of reason'. Despite his own apparent lack of business success, my dad had 'the game' figured out long before I even knew what the rules were. I wonder now how much the loss of him in just that role alone, played out in my future decisions.

In early 2009, when the gelato project was only a month or so away from signing all of the necessary contracts to commence, the founder unexpectedly passed away. My friend, being the son of the founder, understandably lost his focus. Seed capital (which was tied to the credibility & past track-record of the founder) dried up, suppliers filled their capacity with other contracts, and channel customers purchased alternative products to fill the market opportunities that we had identified, and that business never launched.

Along with the sweat equity I had invested in the project, so also (and more importantly) disappeared the strength and capacity of a friend & fellow entrepreneur, who has to this day not recovered from the devastating blow of the loss of his own father.

By the way, I never saw entrepreneurship as just being about business; for me, it's really all about people, and the 'game of life'. In times past, when some-one had said to me "it's just business", that was really telling about how they viewed their role in business - it's definitely a red flag about their integrity, as far as I'm concerned.

Because whilst a business might be a separate legal entity, it is infused with all the elements (good and bad) that make up you as a founder. It is you that sets (or ignores) the culture of the venture you create. Every aspect of your character permeates into your business ventures, from your personality, beliefs, and values, to even your attitudes and mood. It is you that imagines, creates and gives life to it. It is you that moulds, shapes and directs its growth, and it is you that sets forth what you will (or won't do) in order to achieve success.

And when it disappears, or it's taken from you, it takes a little of 'you' with it.

By 2009, in a bid to rollout the NBN.-the largest single infrastructure project in Australia's history- the then-federal government had done a deal with the incumbent telco to take over its fixed-copper lines for broadband delivery. And in the fine print of that negotiation, was a tiny little clause that most people would've missed, but which effectively sealed the fate of our own broadband project (and likely others). It simply stated, that for any organisation that wanted to deliver broadband outside of the methods of this 'great new hope', would have to pay the government a licence fee of between $5 & $20 per month per customer, which was our entire budgeted profit margin,

It was as anti-competitive an action taken by government as I'd ever see in Australia. But do you know the 'golden rule' between big-business & big-government? “He who has the gold, makes the rules". This was a multi-billion dollar deal that had everything to do with political ideologies and corporate manoeuvrings, and nothing at all to do with solving the problems of consumers or innovation, as current events are now starting to bear out. I'm not sure if 'corruption' is too strong a word here, but 'collusion' certainly isn't. So this broadband project, which would've quickly brought fast cheap & reliable broadband to those areas in most need (at no cost to government) stalled, or rather, was effectively killed.

As the old saying goes, “if you can't beat them, join them". In 2004 and 2008, I had helped 3 local people to run for local council office, one of whom was my then-wife. 2 had got elected, and my wife had missed out by 101 votes. So my strong local community profile, along with my experience in crafting and delivering public messages, lead to a conversation with a 2nd tier national political party about my running a campaign for them in our region in 2010. I became the lead candidate, and in late 2010 at the state election, polled very highly, coming within a couple of thousand votes of gaining office, in what would turn out to be a key role in holding the balance of power in the state.

But it was not to be - and in my wife's eyes, yet another failure. This was probably the final blow for her in our relationship. Which begs an important lesson in partnering with some-one who understands the difference between failing from lack of effort, and failing by trying. Your choice of life partners will be almost certainly play a key role in how success ultimately finds you.
And I suggest you re-read that sentence again. For those that stay in the game and keep swinging, it is exactly that way - success will find you.

Now here's where it gets very personal. In April 2011, my 17 year old son from my first marriage was diagnosed with Leukaemia. With my marriage now effectively over, I am reduced to a full time carer of a wonderful child, and nightly hospital visits with my son, but little else. Love, support and opportunity, the 3 things that are the mainstays of any business venture, are gone. And with it, hope.

And then it got worse, much worse.

By mid-2013, I'm embroiled in a family law court case which I could neither afford, nor (at the time) had the mental bandwidth to fight. My former spouse and the family law system took advantage of some-one in a position of which that system was supposedly designed to protect.

By this stage, I'm now broke, homeless, without any income or assets left to sell, no businesses, completely un-employable (prospective employers saw me as a risk), alienated from my family, and left with debts totalling $200,000, for which I had no capacity to pay, with no hope, and no way out. I was surviving on a meagre subsistence subsidy, and some couch-surfing.

It's at this point that people are often driven to commit dangerous or desperate acts. Their choices are limited, as is their thinking, and options. They often quit & give up on life, go bankrupt, become a hermit, commit suicide or become a fugitive or worse. And in doing so, leave tears in the fabric the lives of family, friends, colleagues and former co-workers alike.

But I couldn't even quit on life. I had made my son a promise, and it had everything to do with who I was. I had committed to do my best to raise enough money, by my efforts and intellect, create an endeavour which would make enough money give him a shot that some in-the-future medical treatment might allow him to live a normal & long life, or perhaps even simply to walk again.

So it's often only at that point, when you have nothing left to give, and nothing left for anyone to take, when your back is against the wall, and you are staring out 'into the abyss'. That's where real character kicks in, and the resilience that you've previously learned, can really shine forth. Only at that point, are you left no choice but to make a 'leap of faith'.

It is only when you get far away from the lights and glow of the city, out into the country night sky, that you can see the night stars in all their glory. And it was only when my life had been stripped bare and exposed, could I see with complete clarity, who it was that I was put here to be.
I had been blessed with paying for, by experience, the one thing that virtually guaranteed my future success.

I recognised that I'd been given a gift so valuable, so precious and so rare, that to do anything but take it to its ultimate and logical conclusion would be the real tragedy. And I had acquired a clarity of purpose, an absolute motivation and all the tools required from which to attain my goals.

Life is not fair. But it's not supposed to be. There is a lesson here - the Universe doesn't give you challenges that you can't handle; only the ones that you can. But traversing the path is where the learning is, if only you are strong enough, patient enough, and can "stay the course".

When I finally realised those truths, things suddenly started to get really interesting…………

End-note: By the way, a little-known broadband supplier had developed a successful business in South Australia (at the same time as we were), using the same technology and a similar marketing methodology to a similar market. In late 2012, it was purchased by the incumbent telco, in a highly generous deal which totalled $60 million. My best guess is that this equated to about 22 times earnings (or 22x), so there was clearly a lot of 'blue-sky' or upside built into the price. This deal was later quashed by the ACCC as being 'uncompetitive', and the small telco was subsequently sold to another large telco for a similarly large sum of money.

So sometimes you will discover on your path that you can make all the right choices and still not succeed. But that has nothing to do with the reasons why you try, and why you should try again. Failure or Rejection isn't a bad thing. It's like a signpost that tells you that you are headed in the wrong direction, and nothing whatsoever to do with the value or purpose of your journey. And in that lies the rub. Rejection is not failure - only feedback which leads to learning.