Stop Living In Your Mind.
This is an advice I keep giving myself.
A few years ago, growing up in a small community in Benoni, we used to have beauty pageants, called beauty contents then. Well, mostly women participated, guys just enjoyed sightly views.
There was a girl I spotted then, coincidentally her name was Beauty, not the fairest of them all at the time though, but there was something unique about her. A diamond in the rough to be more euphemistic, and she noticed that I was noticing her eventually.
As a young man I thought I’d found the love of my life, but there was one problem. As much as we touched sights, exchanged winks and heartwarming smiles here and there, we hadn’t spoken yet, not a single word. Not even a hello. In my mind we were already on our honeymoon. You know what they say about a woman in love? She glows, and the others guys started noticing her as well. Some sprang into action, one won, though her heart was with me. So I thought. Sad to say, to this day we haven’t spoken, not once.
Fast forward to years later.
I grew fond of accounting, it wasn’t my first love, I was merely good at it in school, so for my folks it was either I pursue that at varsity or start looking for another place. It was until I learned how to interpret financial statements that everything started to make sense. There’s something fascinating about numbers, telling a story through them.
With all this knowledge and experience, I started a toy business, which I thought would be a walk in the park. I mean I have been an accountant for a while now. Boy, was I mistaken…
The business fell flat on its face, one of my greatest failures. I’ve been trying different businesses over the years, they all failed, but somehow this experience was particularly more painful. Probably because I believed I knew what I was doing, probably because I overstated my capabilities, maybe both.
A few lessons came out of that.
- People don’t care about what you know (unless you’re a consultant), they care about what you know can do for them.
- Don’t fall in love too much with your idea, customers may not be so impressed.
- Build your business idea based on what customers want, you can make more suggestions when you’ve earned your stripes.
- No romance without finance, like Tina Turner said, “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” Customers should be the one falling in love, not just you.
- No one gives a shit about your products, or business for that matters, it is about you can do for them.
Living in your mind convinces us that we lead perfect lives, it is only human nature to want the best for ourselves. We are our biggest advocates, rightfully so, but we don’t change the world by our thoughts only, actions are more eloquent.
