Anyone in business who claims they never want to quit is either not doing a whole lot...is clueless...or is just flat out lying.
As small business owners, we are presented with too-numerous-to-count opportunities to quit.
We enthusiastically sign on for things that soon make us feel like we are WAY in over our head.
The new email campaign you were sure you could finish by Friday...
The e-book some expert told you could be knocked out in a week...
The WordPress website you thought you could create yourself.
Dan Kennedy, one of the highest paid direct-response copywriters in America, tells this story:
"My father told me that the reason doctors whack babies on the ass immediately after they are born is to communicate a fundamental truth they need to know to survive: outside the womb, life is tough. Do doctors still do this? I don't know.
I'd guess not; today, it'd be viewed as infant abuse and threatening to the tiny soul's fragile self-esteem, like, say, playing dodge ball and keeping score a bit later in life. But in 1954, the year of my birth, the Doc at Deaconess Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio delivered that whack."
Owning a business means managing the never-ending flow of daily stuff that gets thrown our way...all while not being overwhelmed, not over-reacting, and certainly not quitting.
Over the long haul, resiliency may be the single most important personal quality that successful entrepreneurs have in common.
How well you can take a punch. How quickly you can recover. How you can weather storms of criticism or humiliation. How adept you are at being flexible. How courageously and creatively you respond to difficulty.
If you want to hone in on one characteristic to work on, resiliency is it. And one way to do it is with little stuff. The day to day stuff.
A lot of people are easily derailed. Easily put into a funk lasting hours or even days. They wonder why they don't get more accomplished.
Even legendary coach Vince Lombardi, known for his "winning is a habit" quote, at one point seriously considered quitting coaching to take a job as a bank branch manager.
And Dr. Joyce Brother, well-known American psychologist and television personality famously said of her long marriage: "I've never once thought seriously about divorce. Murder? Yes. Often. Divorce. Never."
I'm absolutely convinced that everyone things about quitting any variety of things a lot more often than everyone around them imagines.
We all have our moments...but hitting the Easy Button isn't what successful entrepreneurs do.
Instead we shake it off, go hit a bucket of golf balls, walk our dog...and then we go back and do what we do best.
Seize the day!
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