My name isn’t Henry but that’s what some people call me.
I write online under a few different pseudonyms. Henry Newold is one of them. It’s not even close to my real name (unlike the John Haver/John Gillam saga). Because I want to keep some anonymity.
I don’t want you to form opinions about me based on my LinkedIn profile, where I work, the type of work I do, what I do in my free time or any of the other beliefs or opinions I hold.
It’s cleaner this way because it allows me to build credibility solely based on the value I can provide.
Keeping who I am a secret is also mostly to protect my identity and to separate what I do online from my “real” self. There are things I say and things I share that I don’t want to mix with my offline identity.
Mainly because I still have a full-time job working for someone else. They don’t need to know that I hate my job (they probably already do, it’s hard to hide it!).
They don’t need to know that I spend most of my downtime at work thinking about my outside businesses.
And they don’t need to know that the reason I come to work “tired” isn’t really because of my kids, it’s because I’m up until midnight creating designs online for my T-shirt business or writing/editing articles for my websites.
Then I get up at 5:30 am to do more of it before I should be at work.
It’s just cleaner to keep that from them. I need them… until I don’t.
Most importantly, they don’t need to know how many times I’ve failed. They thought they hired a winner!
The point of this site is to chronicle my attempts to break free from the corporate world. And to document my failures. I’ve been alive long enough to realize that failure is how we learn.
It’s in failure that we gain experience which is how we find the hidden treasures of knowledge.
Here’s a sample of what failure has taught me – I’ve found the secret to making money online.
This site is called 99 Fails because I’m going to fail AT LEAST that many times until I find something that works for me. I need to learn how to get comfortable with failure. I need to get friendly with it.
I’m going to test, share those tests and share my knowledge with you. That way you can gain wisdom – which is learning from other people’s mistakes & failures – and maybe you’ll even be a little entertained.
Maybe you’ll act on something I share. Which would be really cool – especially if it works out for you.
And maybe we’ll both eventually break free from the indentured servitude we call being fully employed.
Let’s fail together!
A lot of what I think about failure comes from this great article on Medium.