Ask. Listen. Decide.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here: meeting, helping, and supporting people is my favorite part of the journey of starting Magic Room Brand. There are so many amazing people that I would not have had the pleasure of meeting if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing.
That said, let’s face it…sometimes people are just the most confusing creatures ever. And by sometimes, I mean most of the time.
This morning, I received a text from my wife — who works in a large building located on a large campus — saying she was stopped by a woman who asked her for directions. As my wife began to give her directions, the woman kept interrupting her to tell her that she was wrong.
Yep. You read that correctly. Lady is lost. Lady stops my wife to ask her for directions. Wife, who was probably in a rush, stopped what she was doing to help lady. Lady continues to repeatedly interrupt and disagree.
For someone who was lost, she sure had a lot of opinions about what was the right and wrong way.
It’s only a three step process
It’s not only perfectly ok to ask for help, folks, but it’s absolutely necessary. No one is going at it alone and if they say they are, they’re lying. We all need help and that’s expected.
It’s not enough to just want information. It’s also not enough to just ask for it. Asking is pointless unless you listen.
Step 1: Ask for help. Good for you. You are self-aware enough to recognize when you need help, and then confident enough to ask for it.
Step 2: Shut the f**k up and listen.
Step 3: Decide what you want to do. Because, in the end it’s really up to you what you want to do with the information. You can heed it, ignore it, or just table it until later.
When someone’s trying to help you, don’t get in their way.
Listening leads to learning…
Starting a business means that you have to accept the fact that you’ll most likely not know more than you do know. That’s what makes it hard. That’s what makes it scary. And that’s what makes it so rewarding.
The only way to keep on keeping on, is to never stop asking a ton of questions, listen, and then hoard as many answers as you possibly can.
If you can normalize asking at least one question a day, then you can look back and quantify what’s been learned.
If you’re not listening, you’re not learning. If you’re not learning, then you’re getting dumber.
Here’s to hoping that lady found where she was going.
#bewhatyoumake
