Are you settling for excuses? If you are, you aren’t committed.
On Shark Tank, Mark Cuban explained to a young lady why he wouldn’t be investing in her opportunity. He said, essentially,
I can’t invest in your business if it hasn’t excited you enough for you to overcome your inhibitions and weaknesses. If you believed in it enough, you wouldn’t be making excuses for your weakness. You would be so excited you would have found answers instead of settling for excuses.
Wow, what an indictment!
But even she knew he was right. Face it. If you aren’t committed enough to the opportunity to break through your personal barriers, you’ll hang on to your weaknesses and use them as excuses not to succeed. What winners do is give up their excuses (or never use them to begin with) and do whatever it takes to find solutions.
Successful entrepreneurs do this every day. Unsuccessful entrepreneurs avoid facing the truth.
Cuban told her, You aren’t committed enough to try anything to win.
If you really loved it enough, really believed in it, when it started to slip away you would feel like your back was against the wall. You’d feel the pressure. You’d get desperate, frantic, and upset enough to come out fighting. You would break through your inhibitions, your comfort zone, your hang ups, your opinions. You would be digging everywhere, trying everything to get an answer or a way out, a way to win.
When you find something you are totally committed to, you won’t let it slip away, you won’t let it flounder!
If you aren’t that committed, why should people take you seriously?
Why should they buy from you? Why should they follow you? Why should they listen to your opinions and ideas, much less invest in you? The answer is, they shouldn’t.
If you are struggling to make progress toward a goal, if it seems like you just can’t get past certain roadblocks or overcome obstacles, it’s time to ask, “Am I looking for excuses rather than answers? Am I committed enough?” Start here, and everything else will become clear.
