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Fail Your Way To Your Wildest Dreams

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Fail Your Way To Your Wildest Dreams

Starting Over At 40 Years Old
Mike Dooley
Mike Dooley More by this author
Mar 31, 2016 at 03:45 PM

I’m published in 25 languages, and have a fantastic relationship with Hay House, I’m on my 4th World Tour. I am a speaker, author and trainer. I pinch myself with this fairy tale life that emerged from the ashes of my crash and burn. But how did I get here? 

Let me take you back to where it all started 15 years ago. Mom, Andy and I had just liquidated our T-shirt business. We had run it for 10 years and had gone to amazing places. We were ahead financially but the idea was it was time for a change. So we liquidated for pennies on the dollar, which was fine when we had the plan that we could execute, but when we had locked the last door to the last store of our chain, it hit me.

I was almost 40, how did this happen to me? I thought by the time I was 40 I would have friends on every continent, be living the life of my wildest dreams, but instead I had nothing. I had no career momentum, I had no relationship, I was forced to start my life over and I didn’t even know what I was going to be starting.

And there began the most harrowing, most terrifying time of my life.

You’ve heard the expression, “looking for a light at the end of the tunnel”, I had no tunnel. The pain and the suffering I went through back then was very real. I used my accountant’s brain to determine I had about 2 years of life savings to coast on, but I was quick to remind myself that I had a mortgage that was 3 times larger than my nest egg. “How did this happen to me? What did I do that I shouldn’t have done? 

I would not run my air conditioner in Florida under 85 degrees for fear of running through my nest egg prior to being able to harness my dream and have money coming in.

At my lowest ebb, one night, before bed, I knelt by the side of my bed and prayed to God. Now it’s the Universe when I’m happy, but when I’m petrified, it’s God. In that conversation, I remember saying, “Dear God, I have no idea how I created this mess I’m now in. But I know what I want.” 

  • I want to have enough money to not worry about losing my home
  • I want creative, fulfilling work, but I have no idea what that might be.
  • I want to be surrounded forever more by friends and laughter.
  • I want to start traveling internationally again.

 

Instinctively I followed that prayer up, day-by-day, week-by-week. Knowing what I know about reality, I knew it’s not enough to just put it out there. I followed it up with tools to get excited.

  • Vision boards
  • Scrap books
  • Pictures on bathroom mirrors
  • Pictures on refrigerators
  • Mantras
  • Books with titles to remind me “That’s the world I love, I know I’m powerful”

 

I pitched it to the Universe, I primed the pump, and then I instinctively knew, as we all do, but sometimes we hide it from ourselves, that I had to get out of the house. I had to go knock on doors, turn over stones and make myself available to Divine Intervention. The only place the ship of your dreams will never find you, a Note From The Universe, once said, is at home if you are there waiting for it. And Oprah, she ain’t calling, if all you’re doing about living the life of your dreams is working on a Vision Board. 

So I show up in the physical world, to do something about these visions. I attend metaphysical events and hang out at New Age Bookstores, but I’m also circulating my resume for Accounting because I wasn’t going to say no to anything.

But sometimes knocking on one sucky door because it’s the only one there is, forces another one, a cool one, to open.

This revealed itself to me big time when I asked for help. That took a lot of courage. When I asked for help I was introduced to an idea of how I could bring my teachings to more people using the Internet. It was astounding. Suddenly there was this gigantic click, I realized that all my previous failures were pivotal building blocks for me living the life of my wildest dreams. 

It took 2 years for it to happen but I finally had the number one, best-selling audio program on the internet. I was speechless with my own stunning turn of events, and then to take it to another level, I asked for even more help and then suddenly I’m on a new path, I’ve got new ideas and I’m on a world tour.

What happened was I started to help people get in their lives what I most wanted in my life. And the irony is that as a teacher, when you hear yourself explain the nature of reality again and again and again, you hear it over and over and it empowers you. 

My Infinite Possibilities Certification Course is all about deliberate living and conscious creation. It is about not waiting for the "right time" to start living the life you truly desire.

Our baby steps make us a lightning rod for magic and miracles. 
 

"The best time to plant a tree is always 20 years ago

The second best time to plant a tree is always today'

- Chinese Proverb

About Author
Mike Dooley
Mike Dooley is a former PriceWaterhouseCoopers international tax consultant, turned entrepreneur, who's founded a philosophical Adventurers Club on the internet that's now home to over 500,000 members from over 182 countries. His inspirational boo Continue reading