Why You Need To Become Really Good At Being Unreasonable
One of my favorite quotes it this.
“Reasonable men adjust themselves to their environment. Unreasonable men attempt to change their environment to suit themselves. Therefore, all progress is the work of unreasonable men.” – George Bernard Shaw
Another old one of mine is this.
“ I have observed that those that can truly make up their own mind in the face of advice from others to the contrary and even those in league with their original thought and yet own the decision and its outcome, good, bad, or indifferent, are the only ones that end up owning themselves. They are also the only ones that lead truly great lives and in the end, make a difference for everyone, including themselves, detractors and supporters alike.” – Easy Anderson
As with most of my posts, this comes about from a couple of recent conversations that I have had this past week. I know that a point is important enough to write about when I am reminded of it from several different tangential angles at the same time. So, it happened with this one.
The first time it came up last week was from one of my clients and we were talking about productivity and sales goals. We were discussing sticking with his guns on an ad campaign being done by “experts”. Turns out he was right and they were wrong. He came to his own conclusions in spite of the advice he was getting. Although he would have lived with the outcome if it had not worked out the way he thought it would. But, he was left instead with tens of thousands of more sales.
The other tangent that it came from was from a dear friend of mine that made a decision even though it came about in a highly charged atmosphere of being pressured by good friends and even some family members. They made a conscious decision to step up to the plate and come to their own conclusions and live with the results. Having some inside knowledge, I know this too was another decision that will have positive results for my friend for a long time to come. But, regardless, they were prepared to make up their own mind in spite of some fierce opposition to the contrary and live with those consequences, good, bad, or indifferent.
My friend reminded me how wonderful and beautiful if you will a process this is to observe and see in action. It also reminded me of just how rare it has become too. I firmly believe this is one of the most desirable traites you can seek out in business partners, friends, and in your mate. 🙂 I realized I take this for granted and do it on a daily basis and don’t think about how different it is from most people. That being said, I attribute much of my success these days to it. In fact, without it, I would not be successful at all.
Another take away from my friend this weekend is that it got me to really thinking about this process. I realized that all of the people that I associate with have this ability and I have winnowed out those people in my life that don’t over the past few years.
The take away from all of this is that only when you do the same, are you ever going to have any control over your business and life in general. It is only then that you will be able to reap all of the rewards and get beyond simply ordinary results.
Only by making up your own mind, can you have extraordinary success in any undertaking you become involved with in your life.
I have not seen this point talked about too often and yet it is critical for an Entrepreneur to be successful.
Your Mistakes Have Huge Value
And just a fair warning here… When you take control and truly start making your own decisions, not all of them are going to meet with success. But, very rarely are any of these un-fixable. Learn from the decision and its outcome and make sure you don’t make the same mistake moving forward is all. More than likely if you do screw up, it will not be a big deal. These mistakes are a valuable lever that you will have over your competition. They will help guide you forward to make better decisions and you will get better and better at this as you go.
Pillow Dividends
Plus, one of the big benefits is that you won’t ever wonder if you should have tried it. This is where making your own decisions provide “Pillow Dividends“. This is where you can sleep at night knowing that you totally own what is going on in your life. It will take success to a level of sweetness you may have never thought possible. It will have a long reaching and long lasting psychological impact. Pillow Dividends are part of my theory as to why Entrepreneurs have the highest happiest quotient of any segment of our population. Their success is based on making their own decisions and living with them on a daily basis. If you have ever hung around a reasonably successful Entrepreneur, you will find that they are some of the most well put together, decent and happy people you you have ever met for sure.
Ok, back to making mistakes. Don’t see your mistakes as a negative. Put a positive connotation on them and use them well. In fact, that faster you can make mistakes, the faster you will figure out what works. And you may have heard this term before, but you want to fail faster. You paid a price to get them, use them for all they are worth. Because they really are quite valuable and yet the vast majority of people treat them as having no value whatsoever and beat themselves up over them. This is truly an asinine approach. It is like burning piles of 50 pound notes simply because you don’t recognize a legitimate foreign currency and have never been to Great Britain. Don’t do this, you are too smart for that.
So, in the end, by being unreasonable, not listening to conventional wisdom, and making up your own mind, you are going to be miles ahead of your competition. And if you can manage to bring this into your personal life as well, your life can go from ordinary to extraordinary faster than you ever thought possible. I know this from personal experience. 🙂
Go be unreasonable and have a profitable day.
Cheers,
Easy Anderson
PS Thanks to my friend for reminding me of this over the weekend. You are indeed more special than you know.