“How have I failed? Extensively”: Scoot GM

By Richie Kenzie

Everyone loves a total failure story – and today’s no exception, as we bring you the life lessons and mistakes of Scoot’s General Manager Australia, Jared Simcox.

Simcox will be starring alongside a veritable line-up of industry speakers at our Travel DAZE conference on Monday 25 September (so really bloody soon!)

And if you fancy a cheeky ticket discount (maybe even a 2+ ticket bundle) then hit up hannah@travelweekly.com.au to suss out what’s available.

Now, it’s over to Jared Simcox.

“How have I failed? Extensively,” Simcox started.

“Dropped out of school at 16, failed at pretty much everything, to pursue a music career – FAIL.

“Pursue said music career winding up homeless, dumped and unemployable at 17 – FAIL.

“Return to school and start a music management business – Semi fail (I passed just enough to have tertiary entry but the music company flunked).

“Pursue music management business again and get taken to school by every shark that smelt blood on a teenage rookie? – FAIL.

“Pursue piano-bar entertainer career – FAIL (turns out the most you’ll ever make as a pianist is about $100 a gig, and that’s assuming you don’t drink it).

“Try music business again with some guys who knew better than I did – Semi Fail (we actually kept it up for a few years and had some wins).

“Got cocky and opened a bar at 21 – FAIL (I was too stingy to pay a lawyer to read our lease agreement and we got shutdown six weeks after we opened) and near bankrupt.

“Summary of fails: Broke, miserable, in debt and with a p**sed off girlfriend sharing a single bed at my parents’ house while my pals were at Uni having a blast? – FAIL.

“I took a job as a baggage handler at Auckland airport at 21. You can list the negatives easily – low pay, rough working conditions, rough culture, hideous hours, labour intensive work – essentially a pretty thankless role.

“Or, as I choose to do, I look at what I learned: how to budget properly and how to campaign for better conditions. And a rough bunch of blokes taught this scrawny kid from the city the meaning of teamwork and community.

“I also learned that if I can single-handedly unload an aircraft at 2:30am on a Monday, I sure as hell can take a call now at the same hour and be coherent.

“So, out of the Lav Fluid (that’s the pee and poo in the aeroplane), sleep deprivation, two minute noodle diet, sweaty, stinky hi-vis uniform and the smell of JetA1, I had a success. I knew I wanted to work in travel.

“I joined Scoot in January 2017 with the better part of a decade of failures behind me, and that’s ok.

“I fail every day – but there’s a culture of embracing failure as an integral part of success, because at the end of the day that’s what it is – you cannot have one without the other.

“My measure of success is sucking less at something each time I do it, and helping those around me embrace their own failures and wearing them like a cub scout page “I did that once, I learned from it, I’m better now”.

“Failure, I think, is a little like your muscles when loading bags on or off an aeroplane when you’re a weak little city kid as I was all those years ago – if you’re not doing something that is a little uncomfortable now, you’re never going to grow.

“But with some encouragement, and failing heaps, you will.”

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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