Managing “Not There Yet”

I’m not writing this to talk about how naturally brilliant I am. I’m writing this in the hope that some of you despise me, find me lazy or think that I’m complaining about life being too easy.

Finding hunger again when there’s no struggle isn’t hard, it isn’t tough, it just doesn’t come naturally. When you’re deep in debt but surviving day to day it’s easy to put the blinkers on and not be hungry for enough success to fix the bigger problems.

I worked out early on in life that I was different, somehow emotionally smart and capable of speaking with authority on most subjects without actually being popular or liked. It pissed me off that I wasn’t the smartest or the most popular but still would default into the role of leader or “fixer” if there was a problem. It was like destiny picked me to be something one day but other people didn’t realise.

High school comes around and suddenly things change and you’re thrown into a totally different group of people that make your life suck for a few years. I knew I couldn’t win at their game but life was comfortable enough that I didn’t just leave and find friends and social success outside of that ready-made peer group. I endured rather than getting hungry and really making things happen elsewhere because one day it’d change.

I don’t know when enduring became a source of pride over hunger, it’s a common thing in Australia for us to hate and therefor fear being someone that stands out as “better” than most. Whenever it happened and for whatever reason I despise myself for letting it become part of my DNA.

By age 19 I was training my university friends as a sales team for a business that was barely built. Readying them to go out and sell businesses a solution to getting their local restaurant or store online without needing a website. I’m talking 7 years before Yelp or Urbanspoon were on the scene.

There was no mobile internet or smartphones, the market didn’t even realise it was a problem to not be online. There was just a simple idea to help local businesses get an edge over their competitors, to make more sales. There was also a business partner who was a great counter-balance to my energies but frankly lazy and hesitant about putting money or serious energy into it.

An argument over who got what percentage of share ended up with me just flipping the table metaphorically (we were meeting in a food court, that shit is cemented into the floor) and giving him the whole business. About two months later I was back involved because he admitted to not really getting how to sell or market anything, instead of swallowing my pride I requested a stake in the business plus a salary I knew he couldn’t afford, not because he was a poor student but because he didn’t bet money on his business.

So I went back to university and hated that I could just breeze through every course I had any desire to, full time work as well didn’t really challenge me. I was bored, not hungry, surviving and frankly being supported by my upper middleclass family’s money as well. Life was easy.

I wasn’t hungry.

I wasn’t trying to be the best nor find leadership roles, I was working crazy hours just so I had money to blow on stupid things and laughing at my friends putting in effort at school. Ideas came easily to me and I knew I’d have plenty of chances… after all destiny right?

I moved cities and dropped out of University to open a bar. It was a freaking cool bar.

I got obsessive about cocktails and spirits and soon was on national television and radio, running events around the city and getting a name on Youtube. I was also in the wrong location, horribly underfunded and dealing with a localised recession where businesses all around me were just closing.

I was losing money. A lot of money. Everyone around me was impressed except my parents and family and anyone that knew me before the bar. To them it was pretty disappointing.

Being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and struggling to make rent each week made me hungry, hungry enough to pitch for far less money than I really needed to open a second venue in the same crumbling street. We roasted coffee and had theatrical breakfasts and people who didn’t know any better were once again impressed.

Throughout all of this I hired people and rarely fired them, I employed myself out of the business as much as possible and lived a life pretending I had money when it was all pouring into the businesses and out the other end. I was complacent because I could survive, I was struggling but wouldn’t accept that I needed to level up to get out of it. Destiny motherfucker, it was coming.

I turned an alcohol blog into an online store selling the booze I so coveted. Created another store selling crates of manly stuff that I nailed shut and locked with a chain before shipping to receipients for them to break into. I spewed ideas and made them into businesses at an alarming rate.

Not one of them “succeeded”.

I kept listening to podcasts and reading books about entrepreneurs and the way they kept trying and struggling until suddenly something worked and drank the kool-aid of the hero’s journey. I was struggling but because that’s what needed to happen I was OK with it.

I wasn’t hungry for it to change because the stories told me it will change. That’s the problem with every entrepreneur’s memoir/how-to book/podcast/youtube channel, they are all being written in a position where they can’t remember key things about the struggle.

Every single one follows this pattern: I wasn’t the best in school — I had an idea — I struggled to make it work — I had an ah-ha moment and found the solution — I sold that solution to people and now I’m successful. The worst bit about 99% of entrepreneur stories is those fuckers don’t actually know how they stopped struggling, they just know that it happened.

There are so many failures in the entrepreneurial world that struggled and worked and were just as hungry as those that succeeded. Just as there are so many people with a #1 amazon best seller and a blog that spew the worst kind of mediocrity and charge you for it.

My major skill? My big asset? Being able to walk on stage and pitch to any sized audeince and walk out wiht clients or believers or investors or first place. I could out-present Steve Jobs, I just haven’t earned that right yet, I haven’t built anything to present or talk about. So I pitch crappy business networking events and try to solve clients problems.

It’s easy to succeed as a mediocre struggler that’s used a simple tool to get out of the struggle zone and into comfort. It’s even easier to know how to use those tools and not do it because you arrogantly think it’s cheating and destiny will come and sweep you along into fame and fortune.

As I sit here, in my king size bed, sipping coffee from a top line espresso machine, staring at over $15,000 in tax debt and more than $200,000 still owing on my previous businesses, I want you to know that I am not there yet. I want you to know this more than anything; One day I will be.

And no that isn’t “today” because just choosing to change the situation doesn’t fucking fix it(sorry Mr Robbins). It takes so much more than any of those people looking back at that moment when they changed their mindset and retro-fitting it into their “entrepreneurial hero’s quest” can really comprehend.

You want to succeed? You want destiny to find you deserving? Stop trying to be happy, stop buying small things, stop rewarding yourself for small victories and stop being OK with a slightly nicer life than you had a few years ago.

Because you aren’t OK with it, you just think you should be and try to tell yourself you are and constantly fight that internal battle between “being grateful” and “wanting more”. Be grateful you have that want, that hunger, embrace it and flip the fucking table and bet on your skills because every person that tells you “luck has nothing to do with it” is a liar trying to sell you their view of the world.

Luck is what makes the successful that way. The difference is they put themselves in luck’s path, they worked on a skillset to make every lucky break pay maximum dividends. They were fucking hungry and would succeed inspite of luck.

So find that hunger again. Connect with the universe or yourself or whatever it is that anchors you and find that hunger, embrace that destiny and start getting in it’s path. Get ready for it to knock you the fuck down a few more times until you either side-step it into mediocre self-published success or run head-first into it and knock it the fuck down.

I lost my hunger, I know what that’s like. To any of you who have always been “good enough” you know there’s a hunger hiding there somewhere. I’m struggling now to find it but now I know it’s the most important thing I’ll do for the next few years.

And if I ever reference this post as the “ah-ha” moment you’ll know I chickened the fuck out.