I recently finished reading Sir Alex Fergusons (Ex Manchester United Manager) autobiography. For some this is the definitive bible on how to achieve success, well for me anyway. Midway through reading it I had been made aware of a mention about a friend of mine. It was a quick paragraph about a cheeky chappy Irish lad who dared to call the manager by his first name. Not surprising to anyone that knows this lad, a complete joker if there was ever one, as great as it was to see him get a mention, it really showed me the fine line between success and failure.

I met him when I was about 12yrs old. To call him gifted is putting it mildly. If anyone had ever been blessed with a god given ability to succeed it was this lad. I grew up in awe of him. Everyone I grew up with was always rooting for him to make it at the biggest club in the world. Anyone that saw he play would have been mesmerised by his array of tricks and flicks. What kid doesn’t grow up wanting to play in the premier league? And if it can’t be you, than seeing one of your friends was the next best thing.

Here was a young lad with all the tools; natural talent, drive, and the support of his family and friends, being nurtured at one of the biggest clubs in the world. Everything you could ever want in place to give you the best chance of succeeding in life, at something you are truly passionate about. Yet for one reason or another life intervened and his dream didn’t work out.

He had left school at 14 and made the leap from living in Ireland with his family to living in England with strangers on his own, immersed in the most competitive environment imaginable. Living the fantasy of millions of kids around the world, he experienced life at very peak of professional football, not quite reaching the tip. In anyone’s eyes a pretty huge achievement in itself. I’m sure everything he learned on that journey will hold him in good stead for the rest of his life.

Fast forward some 20 years later and has returned to school with the aim of getting into 3rd level Education. Not any easy thing to do at any age, but to return in your 30’s must be hard. If that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is. You can be sure he is doing it with a smile on his face and the same determination he had walking through the gates at the Theatre of Dreams.

What I wanted to drive home to people was that sometimes in life curve balls are thrown at you and knock you off course. It might take 1 year or it might take 20 years to get back on track. You have to dust yourself down and say I’ll give it my best to recharge my life or my career. Whatever you choose to do, do it with a renewed focus and make it something that you are passionate about. Will it be something that makes life worth living/working for?

In more challenging times endeavour not to give up. You need to find a way to generate an energy that pushes you forward. You need to ensure that this commitment doesn’t wane.
This doesn’t mean blindly crashing into the rocks, sometimes you need to alter the course of where you are headed. It might take several attempts, but you will undoubtedly know when you are headed in the right direction.