You may have never heard of a guy named Pat Flynn, but he’s been a mentor of mine for a very long time, even though I’ve never met Pat or had an actual one-on-one conversation with him.
I’ve been listening to his Smart Passive Income Podcast along with thousands of other listeners, watching his amazing journey, and learning how to become an entrepreneur for years.
He has such a huge following online because of the passive income businesses he’s created.
But Pat’s actually the first person that comes to mind when I think about failure.
He did all the right things in life, things we’re told we’re supposed to do in order to have “success.”
Pat graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in Architecture. After graduation, he landed a gig as a Job Captain at an architectural firm. Then Pat got engaged.
He was thriving in his career. Life was great. But right before his wedding day, everything changed.
Pat got called into his boss’s office and lost his job.
It was completely unexpected. That event could have been the start of a terrible time in his life and brought great stress to his marriage with a scramble for him to find another architecture job.
But instead of focusing on the job that he lost, Pat decided to focus instead on what he had.
And that was a Website.
While working at the firm, Pat had started to study for the LEED architectural exam and began blogging his notes as a way to organize his thoughts and maybe help others. After he lost his job, Pat started looking at his Website stats and noticed that his blog was generating traffic. A lot of traffic. Readers began emailing him asking if he would put his blog study notes into an eBook.
Six weeks later, the eBook was created and Pat was generating $8,000 a month for his new family.
That was in 2008. Over the last several years, Pat has continued to build his passive income empire and documenting the process with a monthly income report to inspire people like me of what is possible. Last month, he earned $150,616.15. Last year he earned just over $1.5 Million.
When he’s asked about the day he got let go, Pat says that while it seemed like a terrible situation at the time, looking back now, he sees it as the best thing that ever happened to him. It forced him to think creatively and find a Plan B that he never would have considered doing otherwise. He’s been able to spend time with his wife and kids that never would have been possible before.
Pat thought that his destiny was to be an architect. But in his failure, he discovered his true calling.
As Believers, the trials of life are where our faith gets tested to see what we’re made of. Good can come from failure if we believe and trust and focus on what we have instead of on what we’ve lost.
Remember that failure is not fatal.
It’s not the opposite of success, it’s often the spark that ignites something new.
May we all be humble enough to see our trials as the opportunities that they truly are.
Don’t bury your failures. Let them inspire you to find your Plan B.
Thanks, Pat.