Get Inspired - 4 Make Mistakes

Life is about making mistakes; don’t be afraid to make a mistake twice. Nobody learns anything by doing it once; people learn things by having that scenario occur over and over again.

Have you ever learnt the lyrics to a song just by listening to it once? But when you listen to the same song a couple more times, you find yourself subconsciously singing the song. You have to repeat things over and over again until you internalize that lesson. And the same thing goes for mistakes; you’re going to have to make the same mistake many times over to learn from it.

You are not going to learn from your mistakes the first time, you are going to have to make them a couple times, but make them quickly and then eventually own those mistakes and stop making them, and move on to new ones.

You should be comfortable making mistakes, embrace making mistakes, make mistakes as quickly as possible, just enough times to never repeat them anymore and then move on to new mistakes.
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing” – George Bernard Shaw

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” – Tallulah Bankhead
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Here are good points to note from my previous articles

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” – John Steinbeck.

Good ideas are ten a penny; everyone will have thought of them and the opportunities they raise – Mark Zuckerberg.


“You have to share the vision… When you get [people] to march in the same direction, you can really move mountains together.” - Carl Henric Svanberg


“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” – Mark Twain


“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”


Ideas do not make differences in business; execution does. The way you act upon your idea is all that counts. History doesn’t remember people who thought of really amazing ideas. History remembers people who did great things because they acted on ideas and visions they had.

It’s those who manage to convert abstractions into concrete solutions that can truly call themselves entrepreneurs. Stop thinking too much and start doing enough.

Get Inspired - #3 You Should be Uncomfortable

A lot of us have day dream about living a fabulous and wealthy life style. But we do nothing to make that dream a reality. One reason why we do not take actions is because of the effort required.

To stand out and break out of the pack, we need to differentiate ourselves and do things most people aren’t willing to do so we can enjoy the benefits in the future that most people might not enjoy.

Growth is accompanied by uncomfortability. Uncomfortability is what leads to growth. To grow and be the best at what you do, you need to step out of your comfort zone because that’s where the magic happens. It’s true that when you step outside your comfort zone; things will start to seem harder, but not impossible, you’ll have to practice more, you’ll begin to sleep less, you’ll begin to face bigger challenges and complex problems. But to every problem there is a solution. Challenges are fun; any competition I have to face so that I can move closer to achieving my goal is a fun competition and it is worth participating.

Most of us when we do things and practice things, we do what we are good at, and we get incrementally better at things we are already good at. What we don’t do is push ourselves in new and meaningful ways. If we want to be the best at things we do we need to step out of our comfort zone and practice in ways nobody else will so we can be the best.

A good example I’ll like to use is the anime character: Naruto – If you watch this series you’ll know what I mean. Naruto never gives up. He never says never. He doesn’t shy away from problems because they are too tough. He is willing to push himself to the limit and do whatever it takes to achieve his goal. It is because of this reason he stands out from everybody else.

Nobody achieves any great thing in life by just repeating the same thing over and over again. When you try to solve a problem but cannot. Be flexible about your solutions, think outside the box, step out of your comfort zone and watch the magic happen.

Don’t shy away from challenges or problem because of the effort required to overcome them. Take the bull by the horn; be flexible about your solutions. Never give up. If something doesn’t work, try again with a different approach. Make yourself uncomfortable – that’s how you stand out from everybody else.

“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”

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Get Inspired - #2 Should I tell people about my ideas or not?

One problem most people face when they think of a brilliant idea or set a goal is; whether they should tell people about their goals and ideas or should they keep it to themselves until they achieved their goal or idea.

Being realistic, there are two things that people are going to tell you about how to set goals.

In the first camp; some people are going to say “Hey, when you’ve got a goal or an idea, don’t tell anybody. Keep your ideas secret, don’t tell people your goals, they are going to steal your ideas, they are going to shit in your goals, they are going to tell you,  you can’t be successful at it.” And yes that’s going to happen. It will.

But then, there is this other camp which is when you have an idea, a business idea, what you want to do with your life; Share it with lots of people.

The reason why you should share it with lots of people is because you are going to get good feedback and ideas.

But there’s another reason why it’s really important to share it with other people once you’ve made a decision about what you are going to do. And that is because you create a mental contract. You now have social pressure on you to go through that thing you said you were going to do. And if you are a person with any integrity whatsoever and you tell all these people in your life, I’m going to do this. And you don’t do it; you are going to look and feel really stupid.

I’ll recommend that when you conceive an idea and you think it’s really great, you should tell someone. Don’t be scared of what might happen, tell someone, tell people, get good feedback and start taking action towards achieving your goals and ideas immediately.

“You have to share the vision… When you get [people] to march in the same direction, you can really move mountains together.” - Carl Henric Svanberg

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Get Inspired - #1 Stop Killing Your Ideas

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” – John Steinbeck.

We generate new ideas every day, good ones and bad ones. But how exactly do we use them? When inspiration strikes what do you do? Do you act on it or do you just leave it as it is ‘an idea in your head’.

If you have an idea in your head and you are totally convinced that the idea will work (and no lives will be lost), you should totally go ahead and do it. What good is an idea when it’s only in your head?

98% of the things we can think of today have already been thought of and 96% of those things have already been achieved. This doesn’t mean you should not act on your idea because it already exists. Act on your ideas, look at what the other person is doing and try to make yours better.

Take a look at Facebook; there were social networking web sites before Facebook. What about ITunes; Napster was the most popular mp3 download and share website before it. But one of the things these products have in common is that they are unique and different. Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs had an idea, they examined their market and saw lots of competitors so they refined their ideas and made their products unique and better.

Ideas do not make differences in business; execution does. The way you act upon your idea is all that counts. History doesn’t remember people who thought of really amazing ideas. History remembers people who did great things because they acted on ideas and visions they had.

When you think of an idea to solve a problem and you are convinced the idea is a good one and will bring you money, act on that idea. Nobody gets paid for finding problems; people get paid for coming up with good solutions.

Don’t be discouraged about how foolish your ideas sound. Just go ahead and do it.

Take a look at Walt Disney;  if a friend comes up to you and says “Hey pal, I have this idea: I want to create a land of puppets named after me where people from all over the world can come and have fun with them. But first I need a billion dollars as start-up capital”. You would probably think the guy is crazy and say “Okay. Good luck with that”. But that’s the thing about ideas. In business they don’t make a difference, it’s the way you go about acting on that idea that matters. This is the reason why you’ll see a business failing and yet there’s another business that does the same thing succeeding.

So don’t let the big ones get away. Because it’s those who manage to convert abstractions into concrete solutions that can truly call themselves entrepreneurs. Stop thinking too much and start doing enough.

Good ideas are ten a penny; everyone will have thought of them and the opportunities they raise – Mark Zuckerberg.

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