Here are a few words of wisdom from the New York Times bestselling book If You Have To Cry, Go Outside by Kelly Cutrone, former CEO of one of the top fashion PR firms and reality TV star: Your Dreams Are Ballbusters, Not The Yellow Brick Road.
You don’t have to read that chapter of her book to get the message. The path to achieving your goals is NOT paved with shining golden bricks as you skip along through a beautiful countryside smiling and singing with friends. It’s paved with misery, disappointment, rejection and predators. Flying monkeys who will rip you to shreds. Apple trees that would rather see you starve than share. A grumpy man at the gate who tells you to bug off, that your desperate situation and need to go home are of no concern to him. A mean old witch you’ve done nothing to who is determined to destroy your friends, drown your dog and kill you off slowly so she can steal your ruby slippers.
ALL of this will be standing between you and your goal. The question is, how badly do you want it?
If you’re trying to start a business or grow a business, you’re going to have to make sacrifices and tough choices, which may mean you can’t attend every family event and every sports game your kid’s playing in. You may have to work while on vacation and take that call during your day off. You’re going to be stressed, pissed off most of the time, anxious and depressed.
Well, that is just not what most people have in mind.
Yeah, I know… there are tons of “gurus” out there telling you this is all unnecessary and that you’re a failure if you’re working 80-plus-hour weeks in an “unbalanced existence” and missing time with the precious cherubs. Usually, this is coming from people who’ve either done nothing because THEY couldn’t stand the heat and are trying to sell everyone on quitting, or HAVE DONE everything they’re telling you NOT to do, made significant wealth and are now spewing their newfound “spiritual” revelations about how your “stuff” owns you, work won’t be the thing you think of on your deathbed, you need to work smarter NOT harder, blah, blah, blah.
Is there some truth in all of this? Of course. ALL humans are constantly making decisions about how hard they are going to push, what they will sacrifice and what lines they won’t cross.
But let’s be clear: unless you have very low standards, the life you envision, the income and wealth you want to achieve, the type of business you want to build won’t just fall in your lap. And whether you get it or not has FAR more to do with how bad you really want it and how determined you are to get it, and less with raw talent, college education, experience or upbringing.
What’s a good measure of how badly you want it? Your actions.
By whether you’ll skip vacation and your kid’s birthday party to attend a seminar or event where you can learn something or make a key connection. Whether you’ll hold off on buying that new car, premium streaming service or some other “toy” and invest the money into coaching, books and mentoring. By whether you’ll show up LIVE for a webinar and be FULLY engaged, asking questions vs. the lie you tell yourself that you’ll watch it on demand later. By how much time you invest into learning and developing HARD-to-develop skills you may not like, such as selling, influential writing, hiring and managing people, understanding, tracking and measuring business numbers. By how much you are willing to be inconvenienced. How long you’ll stick with something.
By how much crap you’re willing to take and how much pain you’re willing to endure.
I know whether you’re serious about your goals by your choices. By how much criticism you’re willing to take. By how much misery you’re willing to endure. Did I mention how much crap you’ll have to take?
Back to the title of this article: Trump’s mugshot says it all. Love him or hate him, you have to admit he’s one determined f**ker. He REALLY wants it. He’s made it crystal clear he won’t be stopped. Will he get it? I certainly don’t know. But his mugshot and his actions clearly show how bad he WANTS IT.
How ’bout you?
