They said Thomas Edison might have failed up to 10,000 times before inventing the lightbulb.

What if he gave up after 8609 tries?

Well, we would need a boatload of candles.

The first and hardest job of my entire life

Door-to-door sales. Yup.

There’s nothing more ‘fun’ as the first job for an introvert fresh out of high school.

It was the summer after my high school graduation; my cousin brought home a hiring flyer from his company, I called the number on the flyer and showed up to their meeting, in a restaurant, where they explained the position to me.

The job was to sell Verizon Fios cable, internet, and phone service. The day starts at 10 A.M. and ends at whenever, depending on our performance, usually past 9 P.M. Monday to Saturday. Walking under sun and rain from neighborhood to neighborhood, knocking on 70–100 doors, with no base rate. That’s right, commission only.

But, I didn’t care, it was my first real job, and I was excited about going around different cities. Also, there were some cool guys on the squad, a no-name white rapper, a legit hip-hop producer, a college basketball player, a super chill surfer, and my friend from high school. I figured these guys were struggling in their respective careers and came to this job to pay the bills. Oh, and the manager loved me, too, by the way.

Long story short, I made 0 sales the first two weeks there, the expectation for a newbie was 1–2 sales a day if I remembered correctly. Everybody else was either killing it or getting by. I was the lone dead fish, even my high school friend who applied to the job with me made his first sale already. I thought maybe sales wasn’t for me.

But they kept encouraging me.

“It’s a numbers game, just keep going.”

“Come and observe me.”

“You’re gonna get one man, don’t think too much.”

They even had me, the quietest and youngest of the room, do our sales cheer in front of the team after most meetings(meetings were every morning).

Me: “WHO ARE WE”

Team:” 2020.”

Me: “WHAT DO WE DO?”

Team: “SELL, SELL, SELL.”

I forgot the rest of the slogan, it was something ridiculous, but it brought me out of my shell.

Anyway, I had the pitch down, I followed their steps, I raised my voice and energy, I knocked on more doors than 99% of the office, but all I ever heard was no. Imagine hearing no’s every day 50 plus times a day. Some people were friendly about it, some not so much. I’ve been threatened by people who told me they were calling the cops, I’ve been threatened by dogs, I’ve been called a scammer and had the door slammed on me.

All of this without a dime, because when you don’t sell, you don’t get paid. If anything, I was wasting money driving around turfs, as well as being nice by picking up other co-workers.

Still, I didn’t mind. Money didn’t bother me at that age. What was killing me was laying eggs day after day.

The company had no reason to fire me because they didn’t offer hourly pay, still, I think it was inevitable at some point. They rather not waste time training someone who’s never going to make any money for them. I had probably broken the record for the longest streak of not making a sale.

But I kept fighting. I had a lead where the wife told me about her husband’s interest in the service, and that he was going to be home on Saturday. I went back to that house at the end of the day on exhausted legs, to only receive a “we’re not interested right now.” I remembered being so frustrated and telling myself that I wouldn’t go out like this, at that point, it was ‘make a sale or die.’

I asked to work the next day, it was Sunday, which was supposed to be the only off day of the week. I convinced my friend to come with me and told him that we have to prove ourselves, we can’t look like losers.

Boom, boom. I made two quick sales, and he made two sales, four total. Talking about hard work paying off. My adrenaline was off the stratosphere. I was even late for a family event, but so what? I made a sale! No, two sales!

I finally got the chip off my shoulders, and the sailing was smooth for the next month or so. Until we made a stop at a brand new turf. No one there had been able to set up Verizon service because it’s by the ocean, and everyone was starving for it.

The first week there, our whole team was on fire, but not like me.

The first few days there, I made consistent sales and accumulated a few leads. When Saturday came, those leads cashed in, and I broke a company record for the most sales in a single day. When we returned to the office the following week, the district manager handed me two hundred dollars cash in front of the whole team during one of our meetings. I was the star, the most unlikely one.

But what if I gave up in the beginning?

I contemplated going home and taking it easy for the summer or finding another job but I’m glad I stuck to it. Having it be my first job ever was important because I was a blank sheet, and the valuable lesson of persistence was ingrained into me early.

I gave up a few jobs because they weren’t my passion

I’ve had so many little side-hustles, but those don’t count.

Let’s start with acting. I juggled between two acting schools, play-rehearsals, auditions, and a part-time job for less than a year before I realized, it wasn’t for me, I didn’t love acting, I loved the idea of being an actor.

Then I started an Amazon FBA business and an Airbnb business. They were both surviving until the pandemic hit. It was a good wake up call because these two businesses were never my ideal career choices, they were a way to stay off the 9–5. So when they weren’t thriving, I had no problem letting go.

No quit in Medium, not me

I’m too embarrassed to screenshot the numbers but damn.

People throw this phrase around all the time, but it couldn’t be more true for my case.

It can’t get any worse.

I’m not kidding. I started writing seriously in June, and I’ve been getting a lot of single-digit views on the articles. Somehow, the numbers sank even lower in the past couple of weeks.

Maybe that’s the process, or perhaps I’m awful, it doesn’t matter. I expected a slow start, and more importantly, I love this platform, and I love writing. And as long as I love what I’m doing, I will continue to try.

Also, I don’t believe my stats would stay this bad if I learn and publish every day for a whole year. If you don’t think I’ll find a way to make it here, think again.

“Failure is the mother of success”

It’s a famous ancient Chinese phrase, and it’s true. Failure teaches you what you did wrong, what you did right, and what you need to improve on.

We should replace the word ‘failure’ with ‘lesson.’

Failure is not the opposite of success it is part of success

-Arianna Huffington

Failure shouldn’t diminish your confidence

That’s the problem with identifying yourself with money and success, along with all of the other nonsense.

You don’t lose points for failing. It only means you need to make adjustments. Whoever’s giving you a hard time for failing needs to reexamine themselves. Seriously.

Fail, fail, fail, and fail some more. You probably shouldn’t expect to succeed until you’ve failed 5, 10, or 20 times, or more.