THERE IS NOTHING worse than the feeling you get when you don’t succeed: that heart-sinking thud as you realise that you’ve tried, and failed.
But all is not lost, as this photo from the CEO of Brown Bag Films, the hugely successful Irish animation company, shows.
These two letters that Cathal Gaffney received – one telling him he had failed an animation course, the other that his short film had an Oscar nomination – show that failure can be just one step on the way to success:
Pic: BrownBagFilms
He put the photo online during one of Brown Bag’s regular #AMA (ask me anything) sessions, which is part of its Brown Bag LABS feature, when asked what qualifications are needed to get a job with the company.
Many years on from Gaffney’s college failure, the studio (which he co-founded with Darragh O’Connell) is the force behind shows like Octonauts and Doc McStuffins, and has been Oscar nominated for Give Up Yer Aul Sins and Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty.
To make you feel even better about failure, Brian Acton, who set up WhatsApp, was rejected by both Twitter and Facebook… and then went on to sell his company to the latter for $16 billion.
An oft-quoted Samuel Beckett line comes to mind: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”.
And if you get an Oscar nomination or a $16bn business deal out of it? How bad.
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