Can You Make a Meatball Cannon?

By Patty Gale

How many tries does it take to make a meatball cannon? I honestly don’t know, but can you imagine meatball cannons in your high school lunchroom? THAT would be crazy.

Seriously, though, I do know that whether it’s a meatball cannon or whatever your big dream is, how long it takes depends on if you’re willing to accept failure as success.

10 Years in the Making

As I write this, it was one week ago tonight, Doug and I attended the Pewaukee Chamber Awards Gala event. Inspired WebWorks was nominated for 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year.

I have no idea who nominated us and we were up against some amazing businesses. To be honest, it was just an honor to be nominated. Yea, I know, everybody says that, but it’s true.

If anybody would have told me several years ago that I would be seeing our company name on big screen monitors, and that I’d be standing up in front of over 300 people to be recognized, I would have never believed it.

It was 10 years in the making.

Giving Up Could Have Been an Option

Over the years, there were many, MANY middle of the night hours working and times I would literally feel like tossing the computer out the window. I remember some nights just tossing my hands up in the air, looking up at the ceiling ready to throw in the towel.

I remember those early years of logging into my online banking with my eyes half-closed not sure of what I’d see.

My business has been an evolution over the years and it looks nothing today like it did 11 years ago. Quitting wasn’t an option, although it easily could have been. But, what would that mean? Go back to a corporate job? Leave my daughter in daycare? No, I couldn’t let that happen.

We’ve Been Conditioned All Wrong

Can failure really be a success? Absolutely! Failure is a success when it eliminates what doesn’t work in order to move forward to find what does work.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that failing is negative. We’ve been taught to believe that when you fail, you’re worthless, you can’t do anything right or even worse, you’ll never amount to anything. That can’t be further from the truth!

You Failed.. YAY!

Most of us have heard of Thomas Edison’s story of trying 3,000 times to get the light bulb to work until he finally did.

He said, “During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem.”

If Thomas Edison would have quit at 2,995 it’s possible you wouldn’t be reading this. And, if I would have quit 5 years ago, you definitely would not be reading this.

I know you have a dream, a BIG dream and whatever that dream is, don’t you ever give up on it! Don’t you ever quit and make me a promise that you’ll keep moving forward. Even when it seems like nothing is working, I promise you a break-through is right around the corner.

I absolutely love the scene from Meet the Robinsons in the video above. It says it all..