Dare to Take Action

Stoic Quote of the Week

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. -Seneca

What I learned this week:

My go-to background music for focused work is an acoustic guitar playlist. Last weekend I got a private concert put on by my nephew who has a singular focus right now, to play the guitar. He and I spent a couple of days at the ranch doing guy stuff and hanging out. We even sat around the campfire while he played the guitar, just like a couple of old-school movie cowboys. The questions I asked were, who else has heard you play? Who else has enjoyed your passion and talent for the guitar? I didn’t get a good answer but let’s just say I didn’t have to take off my boots to keep a tally. When I asked him why, he answered, “I need to practice more. I need to learn how to do this and that.” And the reasons to not play in front of others continued around those two themes. What is interesting is I hear the same thing from people I coach. I can’t do XYZ until I get this certification. I need to finish reading this book before I can start doing that. I should probably spend a little more time on this before I talk to anybody about it. All these things are the same as what my nephew was saying. By the way, the age range here is 18-60. The ultimate fear that holds us back is the fear of failure. We are so afraid of failing that we won’t even give something a trial run. I’ve done it in my business, from ads to videos to just taking action to coach someone. The irony is that the fear of failure is made up in our minds. How do we know we will fail? Who is the judge of the failure? In the end, the only judge of your failures is you. If you do not try, you will never fail—and you will never succeed. No one fails unless they believe they fail. What if you get a standing ovation? What if that client takes the coaching guidance to heart and has massive success? I would rather err on the side of trying and succeeding than never trying at all. Don’t let a made-up fear of failure stop you from taking action. Give it a shot now and learn how to improve. Dare to take action.

Planning thought of the week:

Your plan will never be perfect. The best you can hope for is that plan gets you in the ballpark of the outcome you want. I tell people that the second step of the Army Troop Leading Procedure is to begin movement. When we take action to accomplish the outcome, we start to see if our assumptions are correct and gain more information to continue refining our plan.

Business idea I heard about or thought of:

What is going to replace the local auto mechanic shop? Probably nothing ever will. They are as big of a part of the neighborhood as the elementary school and liquor store. The local mechanic is the guy you trust and go to, but he sucks at running his business. Most of them just want to turn a wrench and fix things. A great business model would be to create a co-op of neighborhood mechanics who take care of all the other things that the guy who is good at fixing your car hates doing. When the resources are pulled, the costs go down. We, as the consumer, still get our neighborhood mechanic, but we get the backside service of the big chain shops. It’s a win-win.

Veteran opportunity of the week:

I’m going to leave this one here because President Biden signed this bill into law this week, effective 10 Aug 2022. Congress got off their butts and over their finger-pointing and passed the PACT Act. If you have not registered on the VA’s burn-pit website, do yourself and your family a favor and take the 15 mins that it takes to do so even if you do not have any symptoms today. Here is the link.

Someone I met this week:

I finally got to meet fellow veteran Cynthia this week. I lost count of how often our common friends said, “Otis, you need to meet Cynthia.” I can’t say it was worth the wait because the wait delayed the actions that she and I will take together. Cynthia is passionate about helping veterans and is volunteering to mentor future veterans that I work with who want to get into the government contracting space or want to start their businesses. I’m looking forward to other areas that she will join in to help veterans overcome problem sets and have more success. You learn more about Cynthia’s business, Incremental Monumental Change, here.

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Link to current The Cam & Otis Show podcast episode, Ep 185 The Glasses Are White with Ira Bowman - Bowman Digital Media.

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