If you forced me to distill the business wisdom I’ve learned into 5 words or less, these are the words I would use: Be willing to suck—bad.
There’s a lot packed into those few words.
Be
Being is a state of mind. “Being” suggests a way you should act regardless of the circumstances. It doesn’t matter what the internal or external pressures are. You have to be a certain way.
It’s like the writer or artist who insists they can only show up under the power of inspiration.
There’s an old adage among writers:
“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.”
That’s the only way to “be.” What you face is not the issue, it’s how you face it.
Willing
In my experience, most people fall short of their goals and dreams because they’ve simply failed to put in the work.
Success is boring. It’s a lot of hard, consistent, sometimes repetitive work.
Take it from Codie (a great follow on socials, by the way):
Willing isn’t willpower. I’m not convinced you need raw willpower to make things happen. It’s more, again, about an attitude or mindset.
It’s waking up with a spirit of receptiveness to the challenges of the day and tackling them with a will to do it again tomorrow. Don’t force something via willpower. Make it as easy as possible to get in there and get work done.
But be just as willing every day to make it to another.
To Suck
Without a doubt, you will absolutely suck at anything new. Jason Fried said “startups are easy, stayups are hard.” The more you keep at something, the more you realize how bad you suck at it… until one day, you don’t anymore.
But when does that point come? My goodness, who knows?! It could take a very long time.
At least when you start something new you get a dopamine rush—some excitement—to offset the suck. But it still sucks, it’s just masked (to you; others can see it).
So literally, every day, you need to be willing to wake up and suck at something, and then be willing to wake up tomorrow and suck at it again.
Bad
And you are REALY going to suck. It will be depressing. You will not have a clue what you are doing. You will face imposter syndrome, and you should, because you will be an imposter.
You will question all of your life decisions. You will think you weren’t cut out for it. You will wonder whether God and your parents made a mistake bringing you into this world. You will think there is no hope.
But—IF—and I mean that’s a HUGE IF—you continue to be willing to suck—bad—every single day…
Everything Changes.
You’ll find, after a while, you don’t suck bad any more. You just suck.
And then the next day, you’ll suck a little less. And a little less. And a little less.
And one day you will wake up and find other people who look up to you for being absolutely FIRE at that very thing you sucked at yesterday.
But if you don’t “embrace the suck” you will never see that day.
Be willing to suck—bad. And one day, you won’t suck anymore.
And your life will have changed forever. And you will be an “overnight success” who inspires other people to… you guessed it—suck.