What is really most important to you in your business? Do you care more about what your employees think, or do you care about hitting your goals? Are you obsessed with not offending anyone, or are you willing to accept the fact that in order to have a purple cow, you will have to alienate someone? It is literally impossible to stand for something AND have everyone “like” you at the same time. As Aristotle so famously said, “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” If you want your business to fail, then I strongly encourage you to care a lot about what other people think about you and work tirelessly to please everyone. If, on the other hand, you are the kind of person that actually wants your business to have a fighting chance to succeed, then you need to get comfortable with conflict. You need to get comfortable with standing for something, even if it means someone will get offended…. because they will. Your brand is one of the most important aspects of your business and as a business coach I see it all the time . If Coca Cola sat around all day trying to convince people that they are a healthy drink, then they wouldn’t get anything done. They know that they are an incredibly unhealthy drink that does terrible things to people’s bodies, and they own it. What is your brand? Are you owning it?
If you want your business to fail, then I strongly encourage you to care a lot about what other people think about you and work tirelessly to please everyone.
Before entering into the world of business coaching and helping entrepreneurs walk down the proven path to success, I had the privilege of working for an organization called Life.Church. Life.Church is one of the largest churches in the world, and the senior pastor, Craig Groeschel, is widely considered to be one of the most influential Christian leaders alive today. If you were to walk into a Life.Church location today (they have over 30 locations), you would see that there is a lot of energy created in the buildings. From overhead music to volunteers to Starbucks coffee, that place is hopping. If you get there a little before service starts, you will hear a professional live band playing a “non-christian” song and then head straight into the worship set. From there, Pastor Craig will appear on a large video screen and preach a message to 100,000+ people all across the world. As a pastor on staff at one of the locations, I heard from people all the time about how they felt disconnected from Pastor Craig, or haw someone preaching from a video screen and not live and in person was not how Church was supposed to be. People would complain about the loud music and lighting. I would constantly hear some sort of complaint, only EVERY week.
To put it simply, people were constantly criticizing Life.Church. Yet, the church continues to grow. Why is this? Pastor Craig would tell the staff all the time that he doesn’t worry when people are criticizing the church, he worries when they are not. He knows that if the church is not being criticized, then we are not standing for the truth that we claimed to believe. It is the same for your business. You need to stand out in the crowd of brown cows by being a purple cow. However, when you do this, you will be criticized. If you know who you are and what your business coach organization stands for, then you are able to quickly assess when criticism is about you standing out, or an opportunity for actual improvement. If you don’t have your purple cow clearly defined, then you never know what criticism and feedback to listen to. In his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson says, “You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of f*cks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a f*ck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get f*cked.”
Today, stop giving a f*ck about what everyone says and start giving a f*ck about the opinions that really matter. As a business coach, I have seen so many times that when a client is willing to do what Clay Clark and Jonathan Kelly say, then their business grows. When a client walks the PROVEN path, then they will succeed. Most times they just need to stop being afraid of everyone’s opinions and start listening to the FACTS that actually matters. Where are you prioritizing others’ opinions in your life and business? What changes are you going to make today to help you make the decisions necessary to actually grow your business? Download the BOOM book today at https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/free-resources/ to get started on this journey.
