Good morning everyone,
I hope all of you had a great Memorial Weekend and short week this week.
I recently started on a new project and was sitting back thinking about when I could hit the street and start letting others know about this project. The issue is that a small voice in the back of my head started speaking loud saying that I need to wait and make it perfect. Wait on launching and wait on getting excited. This unfortunately brings about its friends worry and doubt. Will I totally suck, and will people just sit back and laugh at me.
This feeling of doubt and worry about if I will do good enough tripped me up for a few weeks. I was starting to get to the point of giving up on the project. Then I realized where I was at and stated that it is okay to suck. What is the worst that can happen to me? Will the people throw old vegetables at me, will they call me names, will they throw me off of their roof of their office? I while back I was watching a tv show with my wife called “This is us” and I noticed that one of the couples would speak about the worst possible outcomes of a situation and then they would feel better. They would verbalize the worst of everything and then say, if that is the worst then I can now understand the bottom and work to better the situation. It’s a little weird, but it is actually has merit.
When you verbalize the worst outcomes, you have now given name to them and set a boundary. Usually they are funny like who is going to throw someone off a roof of a building for giving bad sales advice. I’m pretty sure no one really wants to go to jail for murdering a sales person that gave them a bad idea. Most likely they will smile and say that was great, please leave…
With that I got to work and got out speaking to individuals and the best part was while I was talking they were taking notes. No, not the kind of notes with doodles and visualizations of throwing me off a roof, but of items I was speaking on. They were asking great questions on how they could get better and talking to each other on how they could work together to strategize. Seeing that happen is why I do what I do. That is the fuel that makes me want to work harder to help people get to a better place.
Navy Seals call a process of failing forward fast. They do not worry about failing, they actually embrace it. They expect to fail and regroup to improve on their process. Navy seals will work on a mission over and over again until they perfect it. When they get bogged down they go back, analyze what happened, and come back to do a better job. That way when they hit the mission in real time they execute at a high rate of success. Henry Ford is quoted as saying that “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” When we start riding bikes we start going, fall, get back up, and continue riding. Sure, there is a few moments of analyzing what went wrong and how we could do better. Then we need to get back up and move forward. The key is to start and embrace that it won’t be perfect the first few attempts and that is okay.
The problem is that as a child I was always pushed to not fail. If something was hard to just go sit back on the sidelines. Today with the social media all we see is the posts from people celebrating the wins they are having. We then compare their highlight reels to our blooper reels and get down on ourselves. This also plays to the voice in our heads that say, you can’t, you won’t, and you will fail.
Typically, when you hear the voice it is the time you are about to experience growth. You are going to get some bumps and bruises, but why not accept it as part of the cycle of learning. Just start and refine. No successful business person just fell into success, they took their lumps and got back after it.
I was teaching the sales process and the final step is analyze. When you get through something always analyze what went well, what went not so well, and how you can improve in those areas that need improvement. The first step is stepping out. Disclaimer: I am not saying that just jump without looking first. There is some preparation that is needed, but don’t get to the analysis paralysis that keeps you from doing anything.
I am willing to bet we all struggle with not wanting to look bad in front of others, but we are human. The goal is to start and move forward rather than park it on the bench and watch life go buy. We were meant to live life in participation and not meant to watch life as a movie screen. Put yourselves out there and be vulnerable you will be glad you did.
One last thing: True failure is having a set back and giving up entirely, when we should refine and move forward.
Have a great weekend everyone!
As always if you have questions, want to dig deeper, or if you would like to ask about other topics feel free to reach out to me at info@kevinsidebottom.com. Also, you can comment to the blog to keep the conversation going with other readers.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
Sales and Leadership Enterprises