On the list of the most pointless skills to master, Joel Strasser has won multiple Guinness World Records for putting things in his beard. If you have no life, you can waste a couple of minutes and watch the various videos he has online, putting straws, candy canes, chopsticks and golf tees in his whiskers. He even has a few motivational videos showing how he deals with critics and haters about growing a beard big enough to hold 3,500 toothpicks.
Imagine how proud his parents must be.
Yeah, I know. Don’t hate. But think about this for a minute. Such a skill takes time and focus to develop. He’s devoted hours to figuring out the best way to approach the goal, picking random objects, testing them, counting them and figuring out the right items and approach for each (he has instructional videos online). Heck, just the act of putting 600 BBQ skewers in your beard after you know how to do it takes a couple of hours.
In that same amount of time, he could have devoted himself to learning a number of other skills that could have brought significant financial, personal or career growth and gains – which really is the point I’m making here. We CHOOSE the skills we wish to develop, but most people choose trivial pursuits.
I don’t think this concept of choosing our skills enters into most people’s thoughts.
They aren’t intentional about thinking through WHICH skills they should be developing based on a goal they have set for themselves. Of course, many people don’t even have clarity on what they want in life either, which then makes it impossible to focus their efforts on the meaningful attainment of a goal and the skills and abilities they’ll need to acquire it.
Personally, if I could go back in time to when I started the business, I would have told myself to focus on the skills of being able to recruit and develop a great team of people to help build the business. Back then, I foolishly believed that all employees suck; therefore, my strategy was to hire as few as possible. Dumb. That was my ignorance and lack of skill talking.
Another skill I would have worked harder on was to understand business financials and the ability to put together and manage to a budget. Yet another would have been the ability to have difficult conversations (which is part of being able to manage people).
Instead, I doubled down on the skills I already had and liked: marketing, persuasion and selling. Of course, they have served me well and have helped me build a lucrative business that has given me true financial freedom, putting me in the top 1% of not only income but wealth.
But even that status would have been achieved much faster (and I’d be a lot richer) had I been better at hiring and leading people and operating to a budget. I have no excuse. It was pure intellectual laziness and avoidance of things I disliked.
I recently had a brief conversation with an MSP who is thinking of enrolling in our program. He’s a sharp guy, seemingly ambitious and wanting to grow – but in the same breath of telling me how he wants to more than DOUBLE his MRR this year, he’s also telling me he has to wait on marketing until he figures out his tech stack.
I attempted to educate him that the tech stack – or service offering, which is really what he’s trying to piece together – should be done AFTER selecting a target market and conducting basic research on his competition, market dynamics, opportunities and trends (all which cannot be done if you don’t know who you are targeting) so that you CAN put together a strategic service offing and message that will cause you to stand out from the competition and gain market share. You know…a MARKETING PLAN. That needs to come FIRST, before we get into the stuff we’re selling. We’ll see if he “gets” it.
Another person I’m mentoring was telling me in one breath he cannot get a project done that will significantly help his business grow (something he’s said he wants to do) because he’s overwhelmed and unable to keep up with what’s already on his plate. When I questioned where he’s spending his time, I uncovered that he’s burning 2+ hours a day posting on social media for marketing. Not an entirely trivial pursuit, but definitely an activity that has a lower ROI than the project I was encouraging him to complete. He got it.
Sometimes – or should I say often? – it takes fresh eyes to see what you don’t see. If you’re not careful, you can easily get sucked into emotional swamps, low-money work, petty disputes, busy work and other distractions that do not pay. The late oil magnate Boone Pickens once said, “When you’re hunting elephants, don’t get distracted chasing rabbits.”
Stuffing objects into your beard may pay off by giving you some twisted sense of satisfaction for being “slightly famous,” delivering an impressive number of likes and shares on social media. But the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not your time, focus and attention could be directed to a more meaningful outcome or goal.
The list of foolish and trivial pursuits are long and sing a siren song to suck you in. I suggest you pause, reflect and choose wisely.
You can be the guy who figures out how to shove 3,500 toothpicks into his beard—or you can be the one who learns how to build a profitable, scalable MSP. One leads to likes. The other leads to financial freedom. At The IT Sales And Marketing Boot Camp, you’ll learn the skills that actually matter—how to market, sell, lead and grow. If you’re ready to stop wasting time on trivial pursuits and start focusing on what really moves the needle, register now.
