Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. - Henry Ford

A great quote by Henry Ford. There are plenty of other quotes about the role of belief in people's ability to accomplish things. 

In my experience, they are 100% true.

Now, if you can somehow trick yourself into thinking you can fly, that's not what I'm talking about.

However, there are many situations I have found myself in where I found myself delaying something or not doing it because I thought "I don't know how". 

Even after 53 years of living, I still play that game with myself. I'm convinced my idea for a podcast is sound, but I put all sorts of things in front of it, because of fear and a goofy internal dialog. 

It was no different when I started Omega nearly 18 years ago. Did I have a clue? No, I did not. But I just kept pushing myself forward. One more call, one more item on the list, until I was just doing it. If there was an inflection point, I have no idea what it was. 

The moral of my story. The best way to gain the "think you can", is to do it. Fail, but try. Try again. With every increment of effort you'll get better, and your confidence will increase. 

If you want to have your own business, then break it into "bite-sized" pieces. One at a time, try and master them. The process of doing that gives you not only the skill to start a business - it also gives you the confidence, the belief. 

Perhaps you truly can't today, but with effort inability will go away.

If you want a new tomorrow, then make new choices today.

   It's fun to imagine a bright new tomorrow, but a bit harder to alter today to steer toward that tomorrow. There are so many things we put time into that we find to be "normal". Our friends, our family, our food, our work, the list goes on and on. If today is out of kilter, it usually took a bit of time to reach that state. 

   My most recent example is food. After quitting smoking a few years ago, I have managed to put on weight like a mother expecting quadruplets. Clearly my exercise is not keeping pace with my fork. In fact, it's not much of a competition. The fork is doing an end zone dance after scoring repeatedly. Choices...

   Having been a competitive athlete most of my life (even when I was smoking) this is all a bit new. But I'm determined to make sure it becomes a novel memory, the "tubby era" or something like that. 

   It won't be wished away. If only, right? 

   It is going to require some coincident choices be made pronto, like the decision to write this and put some psychological pressure on myself. A start, but the fork also needs to be put under a strict probation, and exercise needs to move to the front of the cue. 

   The hardest part is breaking all the little routines that have developed to ensure that the plan doesn't become a lining on the bottom of a bird cage. To that end, I'm out the door to exercise (torture myself) at the gym.

   It won't be easy, but I can't accept the future looking like the present. So I have to make new choices today in order to change tomorrow. 



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You've got to risk the terrible and pathetic, in order to get to the graceful and elegant.

   If you haven't been bad at something recently, then you probably haven't tried anything new. The awkward bumbling of trying the unfamiliar is something many adults don't encounter very often. A pity, since the mastery of just about everything starts out badly. As toddlers we bumped and scraped our way to walking, which most of manage quite easily now. But often there are scars to show our early efforts.

   You've got to risk the terrible and pathetic, in order to get to the graceful and elegant. Nobody is born a ballet dancer or a piano player. Try, fail, try again, fail better, and so on, until there is something there worth showing off.

    In a world of rapid change, getting used to trying new things is pretty important. Fumbling with editing a video, sorting out a new app on your phone, wrestling with pronouncing a few words in an unfamiliar language are all the sorts of things you'd be advised to suffer through. Because you'll either be involved in the changing world, or left behind bewildered by it.

   So, go on - be terrible; it's the key to greatness. 

   

Leadership, fear and reality.

   Some situations seem truly, no win. Omega had a sales rep who, while hugely popular, had defied all instruction and was badly under performing. 

   Having answered the question, "Can this be fixed?" with a no, it was time to move on. But firing someone sucks in the best case. Dumping everyone's buddy was going to be doubly hard. Ugh.

   Summoning the requisite courage, the conference room got booked, and the firing happened. Strangely easier then expected. When the employee has been talked with enough beforehand, goodbye becomes a formality. 

   On to face the throngs with the news. With a heavy heart, I share news of the parting. "That took long enough.", one rep commented. Adding, "We thought they'd have been gone long ago." I'm stunned as heads begin nodding in agreement.

   What I had thought would be stunning news was already baked in as a foregone conclusion. In short, for not the first time, the staff were way ahead on the problem. Everyone was waiting for me to take action.

   The moral of the story? Most decisions I have faced running a business were on the staff's radar already. In fact, I think most knew before me that something needed to happen. The real problem was my own fear. Fear that I'd disrupt the harmory of things.

   In fact, there was no harmony. People were waiting for my decision. In leadership, the announcement of news is often received as"about time". Adjust your fears accordingly.