I just got off the phone with one of my mentors and he had a really interesting point. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but he informed me that the word “unfortunately” is one of the most repulsive words in the English language. At first, I was taken a little bit aback by this statement. I wondered what he meant by this and thought of all of the times in my life I have used it. How many times had I unfortunately had something come up and I couldn’t do a thing I had told myself I wanted to do? How many times could I have been of value to another and assisted them in their endeavors but “unfortunately” it just didn’t work out.
For a minute I contemplated what he had told me and came to one conclusion. This word was a way of avoiding conflict. Conflict avoidance has been a running theme in my life and I have talked about it in more than one of my newsletters. We avoid conflict because we think that a mediocre outcome that resulted from less conflict is somehow valuable. Evolutionarily there is probably some key to this in attempting to limit the physical/mental damage to oneself to preserve your ability to continue on for another day or to make it to the next meal. In modern times is that a rational fear? Sure, there are outliers, but most of the time it is just the easier road. How many truly wealthy people do you think got there by taking the “safe route”? Was it safe for Elon to bet his company on just one more rocket launch and fund it personally? Was it the safe route to tell people in the early days of the internet that selling books online was going to be the future and compete against Barnes and Noble and the like for Jeff? What about any other truly wealthy/successful person? Did they get there by doing the safe thing? HELL NO, they didn’t! Stop avoiding conflict and embrace the conflict as a way to learn and earn more for yourself. My mentor told me a cut and dry example, if a guy walked up to you on the street and told you to suck his dick, what is your answer? “Unfortunately, I don’t suck dick”? Is it really unfortunate? Or is it just something you don’t do!? Your answer should be, “NO, I don’t suck dick”. Have standards, stick to them, and don’t ever tell someone else that it is unfortunate that you have them.
Choose something today that you have been putting off. Choose something today that you think is too risky that will help you with a goal you’ve had for too long. Choose something today and TAKE ACTION on it. Stop putting it off, stop telling yourself reasons it won’t work, stop selling your future short because it MIGHT be uncomfortable today! Do you know what will be TRULY uncomfortable? Your future if you don’t ever take ACTION and keep choosing mediocrity and average. Don’t look back and tell yourself you could have had more but “unfortunately” you never had the opportunity… bullshit, you NEVER TOOK ACTION. Don’t be that guy, DO IT TODAY!