Do you want to build a company? Do you want to lead your colleagues’ work? If you want to build something with them, first build yourself! The greater your value, the higher your level of thinking and skills, the more experiences you gain and problems you solve—the better people you will attract, the less competition you’ll face in the job market, and the more people will believe in your ideas.
But too many people spend too much time in their comfort zone. It’s a place where nothing grows (including you) and where you’ll mostly meet people whose goal likely isn’t to explore their true potential.
We grow by doing things that are uncomfortable. We grow by overcoming obstacles. When someone complains or makes excuses about “problems,” they’re indirectly rejecting the chance to grow.
The thought, “Life doesn’t happen to you, life happens for you”, is a wonderful example of how a small shift in perspective can change almost everything. Only when we begin to welcome obstacles, hard times, or “problems” into our lives do we truly step out of our own shadow and grow through new situations.
The same is true in business. I often hear people say: “Good people are hard to find,” “It’s hard to make money in this country,” or “It’s not worth doing business in such a small market.” People are endlessly inventive when it comes to finding reasons not to try. They fear failure more than they fear never discovering who they really are and what their true potential could be.
Recently, someone commented on one of my social media posts about New Year’s resolutions: “Resolutions are hard to keep.” And yes, that’s absolutely true. They are. And often they bring pressure and discomfort.
What Helps Many People—and Me Too?
When I do something hard, I focus on the fun part.
Many people make a subtle mistake: they emphasize how difficult something is. They tell themselves that writing is hard, running is hard, or math is difficult. And so on. The dominant thought in their mind is that it’s hard to do.
And yes, these things (and many others in life) can indeed be difficult.
But meanwhile, people who succeed in those areas focus on something else entirely. They think about how good it feels to write, instead of repeating that writing is hard. Or maybe they don’t think much at all. While writing, they slip into a flow state, a meditative rhythm. They also focus on the outcome—the feeling they’ll have once they’ve accomplished something, overcome resistance, or finished a task despite their own mental pushback.
What they almost certainly don’t do is repeat the mental story of how hard it is. Their dominant thought is about an aspect of the experience they enjoy. They work hard, but they concentrate on the fun part. And they recognize that hard things are the most important things we can do. They’re the ones that help us grow, set us apart, change our destiny, inspire others, highlight our true strength, and teach us what we don’t yet know.
I love the quote: “Doing hard things takes a long time, but achieving the impossible takes a little longer.”
I wish you the strength to build yourself—and to cultivate resilience, perseverance, and patience. Because these qualities are rare in business, and they often separate those who merely try from those who truly succeed.
