If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
That title certainly caught my attention when it landed in my email inbox. The accompanying article came from a newsletter that I receive. I post this with the author’s permission. Contact info is below the article. Enjoy!
When I was growing up, I played a lot of basketball. I loved it. I got pretty good and ended up playing on my high school and college teams. But, as anyone that’s ever learned a sport has experienced, I sucked at first. Like really, really bad.
But my desire to get good was burning hot and I put in hours and hours of practice. Every week I sucked a little less until one day, I had a magical epiphany: I didn’t suck anymore. I could move and protect the ball well, I was a good shot, and I understood the flow of the game.
Why am I telling you this? Because it’s very relevant to business. If you want to achieve any level of success in your business, there are many things that you must be willing to suck at first.
I used to suck at sales, but I studied and “practiced” until I got good. I used to suck at managing salespeople, but I stuck with it and got good. I used to suck at marketing, but I persisted until I got better. Whenever I got into some new aspect of running a business, I was totally fine with sucking because I knew I had the will to persist until I got better.
Over the years, many people have told me that they were afraid they’d never be able to master some specific skill of business. They would hold themselves back because of this fear and never push beyond the “suck” phase. Don’t be like them.
The fact is there are quite a few things that you must do well to build a thriving business and most of them won’t be second nature to you. You’re going to have to learn them from scratch and, well, you’ll probably suck at most of them in the beginning. But don’t get down on yourself for this or let it dissuade you from your course. Sucking is just a part of the game.
It’s also true that many businesspeople don’t want to face up to the types and volume of work that it takes to really make it. I’ve known many people that completely ignored the things they knew they should’ve been doing because they felt they didn’t have enough know-how and weren’t willing to learn, or because they just “didn’t like that kind of work.”
Well, if you feel like your business is stuck and you just “don’t know why,” take a look at what you’re not doing that you know you should be or what you’re not good enough at, and I bet you could figure out how to unstick it. Maybe that means you’ll have to burn the midnight oil and learn something new. Maybe it means you’ll have to do things you don’t particularly enjoy. Maybe you’ll suck at them at first. That’s normal.
Give yourself permission to suck and just keep working at those things. You’ll get better and better, and one day you’ll realize, “Wow, I’m pretty good at this!”
by Pat Clouden
Accelerated Training Solutions
http://www.accelerateyourtraining.com
800-809-0487
601 Cleveland Street, Suite 220, Clearwater FL 33755
Carri...
Jocur...
Steve...
You’ve got great insights about marketing, keep up the good work!
Money is not the only motivation for work, because there are people who spend countless hours working in fields like teachers, who are not paid nearly what they are worth. When you choose a profession, the first criteria for the selection is that one must love what they do, or else, you will be unhappy
Loved your site design. I have a midsize pest service company in pinellas county and i cited your page in our meeting. I bookmarked your site and will check back often.
That is the second thing by Pat Clouden that I have totally vibed with (I have only read two things by him). Hits home.
Glad you liked it! I’m pretty picky about what I will repost, but that one definitely made the grade.