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James Dyson built 5,126 failed prototypes before the vacuum that made him a billionaire.
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Spanx was rejected by every manufacturer before one guy’s daughter convinced him to give it a try.
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Angry Birds was Rovio’s 52nd game. Fifty-one tries nobody remembers.
We love the final version. We forget the drafts it took to get there.
- It’s fascinating, a friend who just had a baby told me. There’s all this parenting advice, books, experts, people online and every single one of them says something slightly different… and then you try it, and your experience is different again.
- Kind of like life, isn't it?
Nobody bakes a perfect cake the first time. Not even with a perfect recipe. Not even when the recipe comes from a world-famous chef. Parenting, baking, business, there’s a part of it you only learn when your hands are in the dough.
The longer I’m in business, the more obvious this becomes. You can collect the best advice, underline the smartest books, memorize the “perfect” formula… and the moment you try it, you still hit a learning curve.
You start off average at best. You produce a few rough drafts. And only then, after some bruised ego and messy attempts, you begin to find your footing.
We forget this. Or worse, we pretend the curve doesn’t apply to us.
We expect ourselves to bake the perfect cake on attempt #1.
Sometimes we don’t start at all because we’re waiting to have the perfect recipe first, thinking we can avoid the messy part then.
A client recently delayed doing cold calls for their new business because they were afraid they wouldn’t be good at it.
They were right.
They weren’t.
But that was never the point.
The point of starting isn’t to be brilliant or polished, or to even get a result. The point is to give yourself a chance to become someone who can do this well. Over time. Through reps. Through a stretch of days where things feel awkward and clumsy. And like you are failining all the way.
Most people never survive this part.
It’s not glamorous to be a beginner. It’s not pleasant to have your first attempts look a little (or a lot)… off. But if you treat the start like learning, not performing, it becomes lighter, tolerable, sometimes even joyful. And getting better becomes inevitable.
So here’s my question for you, dear reader,
What aren’t you starting right now because you’re scared you won’t get it right?
I can save you some time -
You won’t. Not the first time.
But that's the only way to give the one you can become a chance to exist.
So, start.
