I had an hour to kill on an airplane ride yesterday, so I pulled out the latest edition of Business 2.0 – which had lots of advice from Million and Billion dollar earners including Donald Trump, Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Edgar Bronfman Jr. not to mention many names at the forefront of today’s user generated content giants Myspace, Linked-In, etc…
Lots of good advice – some I would question (ex. Reed Hastings from Netflix) suggests you should focus on your weak points and turn them into strengths – I prefer to focus on planning and marketing strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses, but that’s just me.
Best of the pack though was a separate article about Go Daddy – here are two major pieces of advice included in the article:
1. You must operate out of your comfort zone. I can personally vouch for the fact that every single time you operate outside of your comfort zone, something good happens. 9 times out of 10 things go better than you imagined. In the rare case where you fall on your face, you learn tremendous lessons that can truly change your life. It may seem to many people that living outside of your comfort zone is something left to a certain personality set – that somehow we are missing that special something that allows others to not be bothered by the anxiety and fear that comes with stretching your limits.
Fact is, there is no secret – everyone feels the same, we all get nervous, fearful, anxious – but that lessens with a few experiences. Ever notice if you fear flying, the more you do it, the less fear you have. Same thing with living outside your comfort zone. Just do it, do it again and before you know it you crave these experiences and your results will be huge.
2. Resistance will be greatest just before you reach great success. Again, this is terrific advice. So many times in the past I’ve had personal experience or have coached others that have hit a wall, they have great doubts, almost throw in the towel and then they breakout and suddenly the universe seems aligned with them instead of stacked against them.
Unfortunately, 99% of people quit before they ever breakthrough – that holds true for greatness in parenting, health, relationships, as well as career, finances and business.
Since I was very young I was taught to be persistent, to view setbacks as stairs up rather than stairs leading down.
When I speak with coaching clients and I hear things are moving along too smoothly I quickly become suspicious – either they are not pushing hard enough OR they are lying. If you’re heading toward greatness there will be lots of setbacks, doubt, fear and anxiety – admit it, in fact, expect it and then move on.
If you can learn to look at setbacks and resistance as essential steps toward greatness, you will have slayed the dragon that leads to so much unhappiness we have caused by unrealized potential.
Jeff
