Underrated but Crucial: Being Ready

My stock of shower gel is down to a couple of cartons now, and boy, does it feel good not to waste it. I can certainly imagine your reaction to that sentence.

It was in my mid-thirties when I faced my first major setback. I proudly recall it as the time I lost a quarter of a million dollars, most of which was my own. It was a high-end line of bath gels and potions for women, a concept I passionately believed in.

Like most things, I was ahead of the market — combining a couple of disparate ideas into a new concept. The idea failed because I learned that introducing an entirely new idea requires a TON of teaching from all angles before that first sale. And I ran out of money trying to do just that.

Today, the concept is fully integrated into our way of life thanks to the vast conglomerates with endlessly deep pockets who launched their version of my idea three years after I folded.

However, the product was so good that I have used it every day since. And now, those three skids of product stacked 5’ by 5’ are finally down to a couple of cartons. There might be enough to get to the end of 2024. Probably best of all, for an all-natural product, very little was thrown out.

That first big failure and all the subsequent much-less-expensive-though decidedly still embarrassing flops were because of ONE substantial missing piece. That missing piece gave me another lesson and stepping stone, leading to eventual success. The missing piece was —

I was not ready.

Working for someone is not nearly as high risk as it is working for oneself. Making mistakes on an employer’s dime is less devastating than doing it with one’s personal cash and the cash gifted by friends and family. Making mistakes because we don’t know what we don’t know is very human. And making no money as a self-employed person is something most of us will stuff quietly into a deep and dark drawer.

Lessons from failure can be applied to all aspects of life, from relationships to career decisions and business. The key takeaway is that we often fail because we aren’t ready. This realization is not a source of shame. Truthfully, we better serve ourselves by using it as a catalyst for growth and eventual success.

I’ll skip over the pablum part about how failing builds resilience and strengthens us.

The thing I want to share today is that if we undertake absolutely anything and we fail, the message we need to tell ourselves is that we were not ready. Not you screwed up, not what a loser, not why didn’t you do this or that. No.

There is a three-part process we all need to take on board.

• Immediately acknowledge we were not ready.
• Decide what we were missing. Yeah, what WE were missing.
• Decide what we do next armed with this knowledge.

And absolutely none of this is easy to do.

It took me decades to fully grasp the significance of ‘being ready.’ It’s not just a mindset; it’s a proactive strategy. It’s about anticipating challenges and being prepared to confront them head-on. Yes, this approach is very frustrating, AND it can also instill a sense of empowerment and determination in us.

I often stress the importance of having a clear vision of what we want to achieve and leveraging the four inches between our ears. But it’s not just about the picture itself, and it’s not just about that valuable piece of real estate known as our brains. It’s about the state we will BE in when we reach our goal. That’s the image we need to keep in our mind’s eye, and that’s the image we must make our brain strive for.

That picture,

The embodiment of our dream or desire is what we want to end up as — what we will BE. The space between where we are today and where we will BE is ‘the journey of becoming.’ And becoming is not just a process; it’s a journey of transformation and evolving into the best version of ourselves.

Many people say they don’t know WHAT kind of image to hold that represents that state of BEing. If that’s you, let me give you one of my tricks. Pick someone, real or imaginary, from whatever period or fantasy you like that you would LOVE to be like. Perhaps a god or goddess. Maybe a movie or sports star. Perhaps a warrior or huntress, warlock or witch, science fiction force or even your favourite politician or religious figure. Choose who you admire or resonate with and can comfortably say, ‘I’d love to carry myself the way they carry themselves. I’d love to be like them. I might even like to do a bit of what they do.’

Remember: It’s not about you losing yourself to them. It’s about you claiming their essence as your own.

However you choose, whomever you choose, whatever you choose is not the critical piece. This is. Every day, you ask yourself, “How would that future version of me reacte to the circumstances I find myself in today?” Seriously, that is all you need to do.

Here’s what happens.

The calls and conversations you’ve been putting off get done. The new skill you need to learn suddenly becomes apparent with an easy path to completion, and the latest story you need to share with the next person begins to shape up — without any extra work by you.

You see, you have tricked your brain into seeing and nudging you toward becoming the person you want to become. It’s no longer about hustle or drudgery. It’s about going through your day with purpose. It’s about keeping track of the little things that happen daily to move you to the end goal.

Until you realize one day, “I am who I wanted to become. I am ready. I AM.”

If this sounds like something you’d like to try, contact me. I’ve likely been where you are and can show you a different perspective. And before you ask, NO, I’m not sharing my dwindling stock of shower gel.