Train the Brave, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 45Fear regret more than failure

Young, idealistic and naïve. These words describe Justine Flynn and her three university friends when they came up with what they felt was a great idea. They would sell bottled water to help fund wells and water systems to provide safe drinking water for people in other parts of the world who had to spend hours each day carrying buckets to get it otherwise. The only challenge was they had between them little money, no experience and no idea how to do it. While they knew it would probably not be easy, they were determined they would never look back and wonder, ‘What if?' So they set off to make it happen.

‘We had an idea, we had passion, but apart from that, not much else,' Justine told me when I interviewed her for Raw Courage TV. It took jumping a few thousand hurdles, encountering numerous naysayers (including those who told them getting national distribution for their drink would be ‘absolutely impossible'), but eventually they did it! Today Thankyou Water is sold in more than 4000 stores across Australia alongside its other products including Thankyou Food. But the real measure of success is in the fact that sales have funded nearly 5000 water solutions in 13 countries giving well over 100 000 people access to drinking water. Which just goes to show, sometimes being young, idealistic and naïve about getting an idea off the ground can be a very good thing.

The reality is that many people don't want to risk the failure, the rejection, ...