MJ DeMarco
I followed the science; all I found was money.
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This article was inspired from this thread here, my informal response, and is part of the Fastlane newsletter <-- Click to subscribe.
Business is HARD. How to Make it IMPOSSIBLE.
An interesting conversation is going on at The Fastlane Forum about why succeeding in business is so damn hard.
The argument?
The problem may be personality fit.
Maybe you keep struggling because you’re playing the wrong game. You’re a tennis player trying to play basketball. Find a business better suited to your personality, your strengths, and your desired lifestyle, and success should become easier.
Yep, there’s truth in that.
But there’s also a dream-killing trap hiding inside it.
Because you can take something that is already HARD and, through your own rules, restrictions, excuses, and unwillingness to tolerate discomfort, make it damn near IMPOSSIBLE.
Think about an Olympic swimmer.
Elite swimmers tend to have bodies suited for swimming: long arms, long torsos, broad shoulders, large hands, favorable proportions.
Give someone that body, and becoming an Olympic swimmer is still extraordinarily HARD.
They still have to train and suffer.
They still have to wake up early, swim thousands of meters, lift weights, lose races, endure plateaus, get coached, correct weaknesses, and repeat the process for years.
I mentioned Michael Phelps in The Great Rat Race Escape and how his Wikipedia story is thousands of words long, but the process (the hard) behind his success was given a few short paragraphs.
The right body doesn’t make the Olympics easy.
It makes the hard possible.
Now take someone whose physical characteristics are horribly mismatched for elite swimming.
The same goal moves from HARD toward IMPOSSIBLE.
Business works much the same way.
You absolutely should pursue opportunities that fit your personality, skills, resources, and desired lifestyle.
This demonstrates good positioning.
But good positioning does not eliminate HARD.
And that’s where would-be Fastlaners screw themselves.
You might find a game that fits you better, but then you demand that the game ALSO be easy.
The moment difficulty appears, you start negotiating with reality.
And suddenly, what began as reasonable self-awareness becomes an elaborate defense system protecting you from discomfort.
I’ve watched this pattern repeat for years for many aspiring Fastlaners…
Then repeat the cycle with the next exciting opportunity.
The opportunity and justification change.
The common denominator doesn’t.
When HARD appears, the entrepreneur bails out.
Newsflash: HARD isn’t evidence you’ve chosen the wrong game. It is simply evidence that you’ve reached the part of the game where progress actually happens.
And yes, sometimes HARD really does mean you’ve chosen poorly.
As @The-J forum member stated, maybe you’re just apex predator in the wrong place -- the polar bear wandering around Sahara.
Get the hell out of the desert.
Find your cold tundra.
But don’t make the mistake of believing it won’t be cold, and your prey hard to catch.
Notice the distinction.
Choose the game where your HARD has the highest probability of producing the outcome you want.
Then accept the HARD that comes with it.
I’m highly introverted. I have ZERO interest in managing large organizations or dealing with endless employee problems. Knowing this has influenced the kinds of businesses I’ve pursued.
I seek to align my personality with the business while still providing value.
But once I chose those businesses, I didn’t expect (or get) some magical exemption from difficulty.
And every additional prerequisite you impose makes the mountain steeper:
Keep building enough fences around yourself, and eventually you’ve constructed a prison.
Now success hasn’t merely become HARD.
You’ve made it IMPOSSIBLE.
So yes, find the sport that fits your body.
Find the business that fits your personality.
Find the pursuit that fits the life you actually want to live.
But understand what you’re buying.
You’re not choosing between HARD and EASY.
You’re choosing between different versions of HARD.
The swimmer’s body makes swimming a better game.
Yet, it doesn’t swim the laps.
And when those 6 AM laps get exhausting, boring, painful, uncertain, repetitive, yada yada, you have a choice:
Keep swimming.
Or climb out of the pool, find another sport, and convince yourself that this time you’ve finally found the one that won’t get hard.
Do that as a form of entrepreneurial psychosis, and you won’t merely make success difficult.
You’ll make it impossible.
Don't make hard, impossible.
MJ
Business is HARD. How to Make it IMPOSSIBLE.
An interesting conversation is going on at The Fastlane Forum about why succeeding in business is so damn hard.
The argument?
The problem may be personality fit.
Maybe you keep struggling because you’re playing the wrong game. You’re a tennis player trying to play basketball. Find a business better suited to your personality, your strengths, and your desired lifestyle, and success should become easier.
Yep, there’s truth in that.
But there’s also a dream-killing trap hiding inside it.
Because you can take something that is already HARD and, through your own rules, restrictions, excuses, and unwillingness to tolerate discomfort, make it damn near IMPOSSIBLE.
Think about an Olympic swimmer.
Elite swimmers tend to have bodies suited for swimming: long arms, long torsos, broad shoulders, large hands, favorable proportions.
Give someone that body, and becoming an Olympic swimmer is still extraordinarily HARD.
They still have to train and suffer.
They still have to wake up early, swim thousands of meters, lift weights, lose races, endure plateaus, get coached, correct weaknesses, and repeat the process for years.
I mentioned Michael Phelps in The Great Rat Race Escape and how his Wikipedia story is thousands of words long, but the process (the hard) behind his success was given a few short paragraphs.
The right body doesn’t make the Olympics easy.
It makes the hard possible.
Now take someone whose physical characteristics are horribly mismatched for elite swimming.
The same goal moves from HARD toward IMPOSSIBLE.
Business works much the same way.
You absolutely should pursue opportunities that fit your personality, skills, resources, and desired lifestyle.
- If you hate managing people, don’t deliberately choose a business requiring 500 employees.
- If you’re introverted, perhaps building a company that depends on nonstop networking and public appearances isn’t your highest-probability path.
- If you hate selling, perhaps don’t choose a model where your entire day consists of cold-calling C-Suite execs.
This demonstrates good positioning.
But good positioning does not eliminate HARD.
And that’s where would-be Fastlaners screw themselves.
You might find a game that fits you better, but then you demand that the game ALSO be easy.
The moment difficulty appears, you start negotiating with reality.
- This doesn’t fit my personality.
- I’m not passionate about this anymore.
- The market is saturated.
- The competition is too strong.
- This is getting too expensive.
- The margins aren’t good enough.
- The math is against me.
- This shouldn’t be this difficult.
And suddenly, what began as reasonable self-awareness becomes an elaborate defense system protecting you from discomfort.
I’ve watched this pattern repeat for years for many aspiring Fastlaners…
- Discover a new opportunity and become wildly excited.
- Work on it for a few weeks or months while novelty supplies the motivation.
- HARD arrives. The work gets repetitive and paint-dry boring. The marketmind doesn’t respond immediately with echoes. Something costs more than expected, or takes longer. Either a skill needs to be learned or a weak skill you have needs to be improved. (In my case, this would be podcast interviews or on-stage speaking). Uncertainty appears. Risk becomes real. Progress slows.
- Quit or pivot, justified by three or four perfectly rational explanations.
Then repeat the cycle with the next exciting opportunity.
The opportunity and justification change.
The common denominator doesn’t.
When HARD appears, the entrepreneur bails out.
Newsflash: HARD isn’t evidence you’ve chosen the wrong game. It is simply evidence that you’ve reached the part of the game where progress actually happens.
- Learning and selling is hard.
- Expanding your comfort zone is hard.
- Building competence is hard.
- Risking money is hard.
- Being uncertain is hard.
- Doing something for the 300th time after the excitement has worn off is hard.
- Waiting months for results is hard.
- Being wrong is hard.
- Getting rejected is hard.
- Changing your beliefs is hard.
And yes, sometimes HARD really does mean you’ve chosen poorly.
As @The-J forum member stated, maybe you’re just apex predator in the wrong place -- the polar bear wandering around Sahara.
Get the hell out of the desert.
Find your cold tundra.
But don’t make the mistake of believing it won’t be cold, and your prey hard to catch.
Notice the distinction.
Choose the game where your HARD has the highest probability of producing the outcome you want.
Then accept the HARD that comes with it.
I’m highly introverted. I have ZERO interest in managing large organizations or dealing with endless employee problems. Knowing this has influenced the kinds of businesses I’ve pursued.
I seek to align my personality with the business while still providing value.
But once I chose those businesses, I didn’t expect (or get) some magical exemption from difficulty.
- I still had to learn things I didn’t want to learn.
- Do things I didn’t want to do.
- Take risks I didn’t want to take.
- Deal with uncertainty.
- Solve stupid problems. (Many self induced)
- Persist when the excitement disappeared.
And every additional prerequisite you impose makes the mountain steeper:
- I won’t sell.
- I won’t advertise.
- I won’t learn that.
- I won’t hire.
- I won’t risk money.
- I won’t do anything repetitive.
- I won’t pursue anything I’m not passionate about.
- I won’t enter a competitive market.
- I won’t do anything that conflicts with my personality.
Keep building enough fences around yourself, and eventually you’ve constructed a prison.
Now success hasn’t merely become HARD.
You’ve made it IMPOSSIBLE.
So yes, find the sport that fits your body.
Find the business that fits your personality.
Find the pursuit that fits the life you actually want to live.
But understand what you’re buying.
You’re not choosing between HARD and EASY.
You’re choosing between different versions of HARD.
The swimmer’s body makes swimming a better game.
Yet, it doesn’t swim the laps.
And when those 6 AM laps get exhausting, boring, painful, uncertain, repetitive, yada yada, you have a choice:
Keep swimming.
Or climb out of the pool, find another sport, and convince yourself that this time you’ve finally found the one that won’t get hard.
Do that as a form of entrepreneurial psychosis, and you won’t merely make success difficult.
You’ll make it impossible.
Don't make hard, impossible.
MJ
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