Tag: advice

The fear of making mistakes

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

When I was younger, I feared making mistakes because I thought it would make me look dumb. I never asked questions in school and figured I would just look up the solution afterwards (even though I rarely did). But what that did was put me further behind. Instead of asking a question, one that may have been on other people’s minds as well, I chose to not understand something. Talk about dumb? That’s a dumb decision!

As I grew older, my fear of asking questions has disappeared, but I still battle the fear of not making mistakes. It’s something that I may always have trouble with, but as long as I remain aware of it and try to fight against it, I will keep improving.

By the way, if you understand what I’m talking about, don’t feel bad. This is very common, especially if you have always been told that you’re good at something. For example, while I don’t know if he has ever come out and said it, I think even LeBron James experiences this too. With his mixture of attributes (height) and skill set (jumping ability, coordination, etc), I think he would have been a great candidate to win the slam dunk contest. There’s no guarantee he’d win, but he was capable of performing dunks that not many other players could imagine. But, to all NBA fans’ chagrin, he never participated in a dunk contest. Instead, he did “participate” in the Skills Challenge. I put the word participate in quotes there because if you go back and look at the Skills Challenge he was in, he looked like he was in half speed – like he wasn’t even trying. Once again, I feel fear is the culprit here. If he tried his best and lost, or if looked like he was trying his best, what would that say about his greatness? In my opinion, nothing. He would still be one of the greatest to ever play. But I think the fixed mindset of him always needing to be the perceived best got to him and his fear of making mistakes/failing led to his half-hearted performance.

That being said, everyone experiences fear. You can run away for a little while, but ultimately, you need to face your fears. Why not get it over with and face them now?

8 Tips to Succeed in Business

To succeed in business, you need to do the following:

1) Hustle for new clients…until you’re well-known and have a history of getting clients what they want, it will be very difficult for them to find you. Instead, you have to find them! Be on social media, attend local meetups, go door knocking, cold calling, etc. The bottom line is you have to work to get new clients.

2) Pay…this isn’t always true (depending on the level of “success” you want to achieve), but it is true if you want to be the top in your field. I’m not saying you have to spend frivolously on things that don’t matter, but you do need to pay for marketing and advertising, have a well-built website, etc. You’ll also have your normal expenses to account for (any licenses, utilities, repairs, or big ticket items like a commercial vehicle). Just like the saying goes, “you have to spend money to make money.”

3) Save…once you start earning money, you can’t spend everything you make. If you do this, you’ll soon find out that the government wants their cut. After all, they put a lot of time and money into this business venture and risked losing it all if…wait, no, that was you. Regardless, the government does do some good (update roads, pay firefighters and the police force, etc.), even if they waste a lot of taxpayer dollars.

In addition to saving for taxes, you’ll also want to save for “stormy weather” like a couple of bad months of selling, a slow season, etc. Many financial experts recommend 3-6 months of personal savings, but most recommend even more (12 months or more) savings for your business. Don’t run your margins so thin that you can’t save any money. If you don’t save money and there happens to be a pandemic (*cough* coronavirus) which includes a shutdown of “non-essential” businesses, you’re screwed.

But in order to save money, you need to…

4) Charge what you’re worth. Be fair with your pricing. But don’t confuse fair with free. You have to get paid. Any business that is still in business needs to make a profit, otherwise they won’t be around for long.

On the other end of the spectrum, don’t charge a premium for something you’ve never done before. Everyone needs to start somewhere, but if you’ve never done something and you act like you’re an expert, you’re misleading the client. Eventually come back to bite you in the butt (and with that will come negative reviews), which is why I believe you should always…

5) Be honest…telling the truth isn’t always what the client wants to hear right then and there, but in the long run it is what’s best. You are only as good as your reputation. If you destroy your credibility, you destroy any trust that you may have built up with your existing and potential clients. That is a much harder hill to climb than being truthful from the get go.

6) Show up on time for appointments…This is the easiest thing you can do to start off on the right foot! It takes no skill to show up on time. If you’ve never met with someone before (or even if you have), don’t disrespect them by showing up late. If they made it a point to be somewhere at an agreed upon time, you should be there too. When you show up whenever you want, you’re essentially telling the other person that your time is more valuable than theirs. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s the best way to win business.

7) Communicate…set expectations for them, keep them in the loop on what’s happening, and if you don’t have an answer to one of their questions, let them know you’re working on it. When something bad happens, tell them face-to-face or call them if you need to, but never text/email bad news. Yes, it will be harder to do in person, but once again, it goes back to respecting the client. It shows you care and if you were in their shoes, you would probably want them to do the same.

8) Be personable…when everything else is equal with the competition, people buy from people they like. If you can build rapport with them, make them feel like you actually like them/care about them (which you should), and they don’t think you’re being disingenuous, you will win over a lot of potential clients that were on the fence.

Those are my 8 simple tips to succeed in business. There are plenty of other rules, but if you’d like to add any of your own, feel free to add a comment below!

Mindset

Work on having a growth mindset, where you’re open to the possibility of changing and growing your abilities. Just because you can’t do something right now doesn’t mean that you’ll never be able to do it. The only way that you know for sure that you won’t be able to do something is if you stop trying to improve yourself. The same can be said if you are already good at something. If you have a fixed mindset, you may think that you don’t have to try because you’ll always be good at that thing. But if you stop working at something because you feel your abilities are “fixed,” you will soon be surpassed by those who are working harder than you.

So how do you work on having a growth mindset? Understand that everyone has to start somewhere. Some people will naturally have more ability than others, but no matter where you start, you can always improve if you’re willing to make an effort. Realize that if you want to improve, you’re going to have to push the boundaries of your comfort and, as a result, you’ll fail often. Don’t be afraid of failure. Embrace it and use it as a stepping stone towards your eventual success. It can only truly be considered a failure if you quit afterwards. Otherwise it’s just more experience for you to learn from.

Love vs admiration

For someone to know you and love you is more impressive than getting the admiration of those who only know your public persona. Anyone can put on a show in public, being on their best behavior, and most people do. So when you to let someone into your life and they see the real you, with all of your imperfections, and still love you? That’s what really matters.

Don’t worry about popularity or fame (which are always fleeting), just treat people well and try to do the right thing as much as you can. By doing this, you can help win the love and respect from those who truly matter.

Patience with teaching

It takes strength to be gentle. Anyone can be rude, but it takes self-control, strength, and discipline to be patient and caring.

For example, do you get easily annoyed (and show it) when others aren’t understanding what you’re explaining? Be gentle with them. Try to explain it in another way. Whether that means using a different example (verbally) or using a different teaching method (they may learn better by reading or doing instead of listening), if you really want them to understand what you’re talking about, you need to adapt your teaching style to how they learn best. Regardless of whether your other methods work, at the very minimum you’ll become a better teacher by learning how to use different teaching methods.

Lastly, if you really want someone to learn something, you can be firm with them, but don’t be rude or make disparaging remarks. While that may motivate some people, it will make even more people “shut down.” Then, not only do you lose your chance at a teachable moment, but you also hurt their self-esteem and lose their respect (if only temporarily) in the process.