Читать книгу Find. Build. Sell. - Stephen J. Hunt - Страница 23

I now had less than 24 hours to come up with a million dollars and I had zero prospects of achieving that. So I turned to the only figure I could think of: St Francis, the patron saint for lost causes; the saint all lapsed Catholics turn to when they've lost all hope. I said, ‘St Francis, get me out of this pickle and I promise I will go to mass every Sunday. I'll bring the kids too; heck, I'll even take them to Confession!'

St Francis promptly told me to get off my arse and contact someone who actually had the power to help me, so I went back to the original 10 who had expressed interest and said, ‘Look, I just need to know if you're in or out. I don't mind which way you go (I did), but I just need an answer'. ‘We're out,' they said. Well, at least I knew where I stood.

I said, ‘Okay, you may not want to invest, but do you have any friends who may want to invest?' And fortunately, they did. They were probably just trying to fob me off to get me to stop bugging them, but to my great relief, they gave me 10 names to follow up.

I rang them all. Seven said, ‘Thanks, but no'. Three said, ‘Maybe, let's talk'. Bingo! All was not lost. I had three shots to raise a million dollars.

I was on a mission.

I did not waste time sleeping that night (I couldn't sleep anyway), so at 3 am I got up and went for a jog in the dark. As I jogged along that cold, lonely street, I reflected on how I had got myself into this stressful situation, and I beat myself up for being so naïve. But I realised that the only person who could turn this around was me, and giving up was not in my nature. Even when I played football and we were losing 50 to 1, I always believed we could turn it around. This was no different. With each step, I reiterated the beliefs that had sustained me in darker times than this: There is always a way. You can do this. Don't give up.