The Power of Try: How One Simple Idea Creates Incredible Results

When I was 8 years old my dad gave me a super power. I loved rollerblading. I would go out into a parking lot across from my house every day after school and rollerblade until my mom called me in for dinner.

One day I went to my dad and I said “Dad, what do you think would happen if we tied a rope to the minivan and I held onto that rope with my roller blades on while you drove down the street?”

My dad looked at me and said “I don’t know. Let’s try it.”

So we looped a rope through the luggage rack on the top of the van. I put on my blades, hung on to the rope, and my dad gunned the van down the street. It was awesome.

Our neighbors did not think it was awesome. And I know that because when we pulled back into the driveway, there was a cop waiting for us. Our neighbors had apparently looked out their window, saw a 1993 dodge van speeding by tied to an 8 year old and decided they needed to get the police involved.

My dad smoothed it over with the cop by promising a moratorium on all van blading, which is what we were going to call it.

Here’s the super power my dad gave me that day: When he said “I don’t know, let’s try it,” he taught me that no idea is too crazy to try. He taught me the way you learn is by trying.

That’s what I call the Power of Try.

My dad taught me that same lesson a thousand other ways throughout my childhood. A thousand things we tried because we wanted to learn, or we wanted a new experience, or we just wanted to see what would happen. Everything I wondered about he said ‘Let’s try’.

At the time I didn’t understand how impactful that simple idea would be in my life. But in retrospect I’ve realized what he could have said instead of ‘let’s try.’ He could have said, that’s crazy. That’s too dangerous. Too risky. Not worth it. Not how things are done. Or he could have said: I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough.?

But he didn’t. He said let’s try it. And in doing so he taught me that the way you interact with new ideas, information, and opportunities is not with fear, or a reflexive no. It’s with the power of try: ‘let’s try it”.???

How We Use The Power of Try at Musicologie

So here’s how that super power manifests at Musicologie today: when I show up to our weekly leadership meetings with a crazy idea someone will say “I don’t think we should do that. Do you really think that will work?”

I’ll say “I don’t know. But let’s try. Because then we’ll find out.”?

It’s a super power because it does two things simultaneously:

1. It’s an acknowledgement that I don’t have all the answers. No one does. No single idea is a golden ticket. We’re gonna need to try things to move our business forward. Lots of things. My idea might work today. Yours might tomorrow.??
2. It’s a bias toward action. We switch the conversation from asking “will that work?” which is a recipe for talking in circles for hours, to “what steps can we take to try it and find out if it works?” We don’t wait until we’re certain because certainty doesn’t exist. Every choice involves risk. We act now, however we can, to learn whatever we can, and adjust as we go.?

That mentality has given our whole team at Musicologie a fearlessness. We know there is no single right answer. So, we take action. We try something. Because when we try, we learn.

Quality vs Quantity

I love this example from Atomic Habits by James Clear: There was a study in a photography class at the University of Florida in which the professor divided his students into two groups: The first group was the quantity group. They were told to turn in 100 photos by the end of the term. The quality didn’t matter. Just turn in 100 photos and they’d get an A.

The second group was the quality group. They were told they only needed to turn in one photo but the photo had to be excellent. At the end of the term, what happened? Whose photos were better? ALL the best photos came from the quantity group. The group that had to turn in 100 photos.

Why? Because by taking so many photos, they automatically got better. They spent the entire term trying stuff. And as they tried, they gained knowledge and experience and became better photographers.?

Contrast that with the quality group, who obsessed over their single photo and ended up not trying very many things at all. They didn’t gain experience or knowledge and finished the term with lots of theories and one mediocre photo.

I love that story because I think sometimes we treat our lives and our businesses like quality group. We think we only have one shot, so we’d better get it right. It had better be perfect.

And so we obsess about how, when, where to make our move, and sometimes end up making no move at all. We don’t try very many things because we’re afraid if we try, we’ll fail, and we’ll mess up our one shot.

But the reality is when you try, you learn, you gain knowledge and experience. Those things compound and soon you can’t help but succeed. In fact, that's the very definition of success. Everything else is just luck.

Opening Our Second Location

Let me give you two concrete examples of how we’ve implemented the Power of Try on Musicologie’s journey from six students in our house to six studios across the state with more than 100 employees.

The first example: When Kay and I decided to open our second location, we had no idea what we were doing. We had no manuals, no training, no manager, no Bamsquad, no mentors, no coaches, nothing. Our first location was barely making money. We had never gotten a commercial loan before, done a buildout, hired a lawyer, and we didn’t even work with a commercial real estate agent. But I said, I want to open a location across town. Kay said “No. That’s crazy. It’s too risky, not worth it, we’re not experts.” I said “Will you let me try? We don’t have to know everything. We just have to take one step at a time.”

We found a space and when the listing agent told me the lease rate was 16 per square foot triple net I said, what the hell does that mean? He laughed and explained it to me. And now I know. What we didn’t know is that it would be successful. In fact, it wasn’t successful, not right away. We had a bunch of problems. There were noise issues, there were teacher issues. The second month we only made $2800 gross (!) But we learned a ton about how to build systems, about how to manage a team, how to scale, and during that first year we laid the foundation for all of Musicologie’s future growth. Today, that location has an amazing manager and team and will gross $750k this year.??????

Building Brand New Software

The second example is our scheduling software, called MyMusicologie. We had used everything over the years but nothing was quite right. Our partner Kyle said what if we built our own software? And you know what I said? No, that’s crazy. It’s too risky. It’s not worth it. We’re not experts.

And he said - will you let me try? Give me one year to try and then we’ll see where we are. I remembered my dad. I remembered all those times he said ‘let’s try it’. And so I said ok.

So what happened? It was a huge, crazy effort. But today we have beautiful proprietary studio management software that is custom built for our use and eliminates all the common scheduling and management pain points. It has all of our scripts and how-tos built in and is so easy to use that I bet you could sit down at our front desk right now, and book a new student into lessons without any training.

Here’s the craziest thing: When my partner Kyle suggested he build us custom software, he had never coded before. He wasn’t a software developer. He didn’t take any classes or enroll in a bootcamp.

So how did he know it would work? He didn’t. But he knew that the best way to find out what was possible was to try. And now he’s a certified full stack developer and we have the best studio management software around.

With the power of try you can build things that seem impossible. You can push past risk and create a bias toward action.

I can’t tell you if you try you’ll succeed. In fact most of the time you won’t. But that’s the point: the more things you try, the more you’ll learn and the better you’ll get and eventually you will succeed. But if you never try, you won’t even have a chance at success. If you want something you’ve never got you have to do something you’ve never done.

How to Mitigate Risk While Trying Crazy Ideas

Ok so how do you actually do this? How do you know what to try? And how can you mitigate risk while you’re trying new things? Couple of specific ways:

1. Test by making small, reversible changes first. For example when we rolled out our Accelerated Piano Lab we started with 15 students at one location. When we migrated to a new software, we had our smallest location go first and work out the kinks. You don’t have to have multiple locations for this. It works at any scale. This is the true power of try. Don’t let a huge project overwhelm you. Start the process now by making small changes, understand that mistakes are inevitable, learn from them and move forward with new knowledge and experience.?
2. Imagine the worst case scenario. How bad is it actually? We often convince ourselves that failure is a bigger deal than it actually is. For example, we’re planning a new Indianapolis studio right now. It’s a huge expense. It’s a new city. There are a ton of unknowns. So what happens if we open it and it totally fails. I mean totally. Not a single student signs up. Zero revenue. Nothing. What happens? Well it would really hurt. It would feel like wasted time and effort and money. But would our other six studios fail? No. Would I go bankrupt? No. Would it ruin my life? No. I’d have to adjust some personal financial expectations for sure, but that’s it.?

And if that’s the worst case, the question then becomes why NOT try it? Even in the case of total failure, we’d learn a ton. Why did we fail? What was wrong about our assumptions? How can we do it better next time? But if we succeed, well we’ve just changed our lives and the trajectory of Musicologie. That’s a risk worth trying.?

What Are You Leaving On the Table By Not Trying?

You have to acknowledge that every choice involves risk, even the choice to do nothing. The choices involving big change feel the most risky. It’s easy to focus only on the things that could go wrong. But there’s another side of risk you should think about too: what if you don’t try something, but if you had, it would have profoundly affected your life and business for the better? What are you leaving on the table by not trying?

You might say - how could I possibly know that? The answer, of course, is: I don’t know. You’ll have to try it.????