Who is around you?
Matt Henderson:
Good morning. “There are two types of people who will tell you that you can’t make a difference in the world, those who are afraid to try, and those who are afraid you will succeed.” It’s a quote from Ray Goforth.
It’s an amazing quote, right? It’s so simple, but yet it explains why people aren’t always on your side or helping you along your path. It was one of those, I don’t know, ultra motivational quotes for me because I’ve been there. I’m sure so many of you guys have, where you have an idea, you have literally a business in your mind that you want to get out there and you want to put it on the table. What do most of us do when you have that first idea? For me, and I think for most of us, we go out and we’re going to talk to the people who are around us.
…Now, hypothetically, you would think these people are the best people to talk to about stuff like this because you need a sounding board. At least, well, I need a sounding board. I’m sure most people do. When I say it, I mean I put it out there to so many people with these different ideas that I’ve had over the past. My first big idea I had was actually back in high school, and I’ll give you a little bit of backstory. I’m sitting in the auditorium, and that was where we did our study … I don’t remember what they called it. Study break? Study session? I don’t know.
You had one of your periods during the day that you actually would just sit and do your homework. I don’t know why you don’t do homework at home anymore. But anyway, I’m sitting in there and I’ve got all my buddies, because you know how it is in high school. You’ve got friends and you guys
all click together in high school, and we’re in our own little clique. I’d had this idea overnight and I drew it out, and then I was in my ADD world of high school. I was sitting in class doodling my great idea, and I finally got up the guts to show it to my buddies in study hall. That’s what it’s called, a study hall.
I break out my sketch, which is a really, really highly elaborate high school drawing on a piece of paper. I’m not an artist, so you can imagine. It looked pretty amazing. My idea was for a pair of pants that had the ability to turn into shorts. Now, to give you a reference, when I was in high school, that was 1992 or three, that I was having this conversation. My friends all laughed at me. Mocked me endlessly. I didn’t come from a lot of entrepreneurial types of friends. I was only that way. If you’ve listened in the past, I’m sure you have heard the stories.
My family is an entrepreneurial family, and it always had multiple businesses and stuff. For me, this was the norm. People have brilliant ideas and they brainstorm and whatever. That was how I grew up. It wasn’t weird to me that I was having these thoughts and coming up with my own ideas because
that was really what my family … Well, my dad had pushed me too. He did instill to me, as being part of my family, that we had an entrepreneurial spirit, and that was always instilled to me as a child. I showed my friends and they mocked me. Brutally. Brutally, brutally, brutally mocked me, and I didn’t let it go.
I didn’t let it go. I tried to get my friend’s mother who was a retired seamstress back in the day to make me a pair of these. You know what? I think because of the ridicule, I finally eventually let it go. I had this really pretty terrible name, but I was going to call it [shorpants 00:05:40]. You know why? Because they were going to be shorts and pants. Brilliant name. Right? Can’t imagine it didn’t take off. Anyway, I lived by the beach, so I thought, “Oh my gosh, what a great thing for all of these lifeguards that are out there freezing in the morning, sweating in the afternoons. This just seems to make a lot of sense.”
After my friends mocking me relentlessly, I finally let it go. Right before we graduated high school, it was our senior year, so probably two years later after that, this little company came out with a pair of pants that turned into shorts. You know what that company was called? You probably never even heard of it. L.L.Bean? Yeah, and then J.Crew? That’s why this quote rings so true to me, because somebody became really, really wealthy from an idea that I had and just I let people tell me and ridicule me into not doing it.
You know why? They were afraid that I would succeed and I might not be around anymore, and I might be a bigger person than hanging out with my buddies. It’s crazy because that’s not how it would be at all. But when you’re in high school, I think that’s exactly how it seems. When I say there are two types of people in the world, those that cannot make a difference will tell you you can’t make a difference in the world. My friends were telling me I couldn’t make a difference, but I think really, they were probably scared that I’d succeed at it, and then they wouldn’t look as much of a bigger deal as I had turned out to be.
Think about that going forward. Don’t let people get in your head. Don’t let everybody tell you that you can’t pull something off or you can’t accomplish your goals or that your idea isn’t a good idea. Because you know what? Just taking the step and just trying it and seeing what happens is a much bigger idea and a bigger step in life, in general, than it is to just ridicule others until they don’t do what you think is a bad idea. It just doesn’t make any sense, but I think that’s what people do.
That’s why bullies are bullies. They really have insecurities about themselves. Therefore, they push their negativity onto other people, but it’s no different in business. Business has bullies too. In the world, you got to, like I said a couple days ago, learn to tune out the noise. Let go of the shiny objects around you. Don’t even pay attention to them. Get rid of the people that are around you that are throwing negativity in your direction. If they’re throwing negativity your way, they’re not your friends. If they’re telling you you can’t do something, not your friends. Not your support group. That’s for sure.
That’s something I’ve focused on over the last few years, is really just … It’s thinning that out and keeping the people around me who are going to motivate me and push me to do more, and then the rest of the people, well, I just don’t see them as much, and that’s okay, because I’m working on my success and I want you guys to work on yours. That’s why I’m sharing this journey with you, and that’s why I’m giving you everything I learned along the way because these are all pieces that have helped me get to the point of taking educated risks and pushing myself and challenging myself to be a bigger person in business and in life, and a better husband and a better business partner to my business partners.
But it’s because I wasn’t afraid to push forward, I wasn’t afraid to let go and stop listening to all the noise, and I certainly am not afraid to start a business and have it fail. My thoughts are, in starting a business, just fail quickly. If you have things that you’re not sure are going to work, try them out first. If they fail, you fail quickly at them. Get rid of them. Scrape them right off the plate and start over again. But definitely, don’t let people do to you what they did to me, which was basically, they told me I couldn’t do something, and at some point, I let them get in my head and I believed them.
I’ll never ever, ever do that again. I learned from that lesson and that’s why I wanted to share it with you guys that every one of my loyal faithful listeners here on the Business Mind Podcast, they’re going to have that to take with them today, and now you guys can add that to your arsenal of things that you know will cause you to fail and not let them get in your way. All right. I hope you guys have an amazing weekend. It’s Saturday here. I don’t know what day it is where you guys are listening, but it doesn’t matter.
I hope you have an amazing day, and if it is your weekend, think about that idea. Take the first step. Don’t let other people tell you things about it. You know what? If you talk to your family, friends or whatever, and they tell you that your idea isn’t going to work or it’s a bad idea, stop talking to them about your situation. If you want to ask somebody if it’s a good idea or a bad idea, send me an email [email protected]. I’ll tell you what I think about your idea. I don’t know you, so I don’t have any preconceived notions of what you can achieve or what’s going to work for you.
You guys feel free to reach out to me. I’m excited to hear from you and I’m excited to help you grow your businesses. Again, Matt from the Business Mind Podcast. If you guys can share this with anyone out there, wherever you’re listening to it, if you can go ahead and leave me a review, that would
be amazing. If you could share it with your friends, family, and anyone else and let them know how cool this podcast is, I would greatly appreciate it, because I’m enjoying doing it and I’d love to hear from people and hear what they think. All right, everyone, have a great day, and I will talk to you again soon.