Are you sick of hearing how amazing, brilliant, sparkly and remarkable you have to be every single day?
Me too.
If I believed the business and self-help gurus, I should be feeling my passion, cherishing every moment, and embracing my brilliance every minute of every day.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.
I just came in from walking my dogs. One of them apparently ate something that disagreed with her.
Fiona is a hairy dog and while I was bent over her trimming disgustingness off her butt feathers, I didn’t feel brilliant. I wasn’t passionate or overcome with glee.
In fact, I was a little grossed out.
I love dogs and my dogs in particular, but some things about dog ownership are just plain nasty. People tend to gloss over the less fun aspects of dog ownership in dog books.
Here are a few words you rarely find in the books or articles: barf, puke, diarrhea, yellow slime, yak, poop chute, chunks.
Some reference materials might offer solutions, such as don’t let your dog into the garbage. It’s good advice, but as any dog owner will tell you, sometimes the dog has other ideas. The resulting effluent is unpleasant, but having to clean up dog barf doesn’t mean you’re a bad dog owner.
In much the same way, business books tend to gloss over some of the not so nice aspects of being an entrepreneur.
You don’t read much about: clients that suck, promotions that don’t work, PR campaigns that are ignored, products that fail, embezzlement, employee theft, burnout, long hours, procrastination, or giving up.
You’ll get lots of ideas for attracting new clients, PR, product development and so forth. But what if you follow the advice and it doesn’t work? Does that make you a loser?
I say no.
I think you can do everything “right” and sometimes the world has other ideas. The resulting effluent can be unpleasant. But it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
So if you feel like a loser sometimes, let me just say, you’re not the only one. Business and dog ownership can both be a lot more challenging than people let on. But they are both rewarding.
Too many people give up on things because they buy into some Pollyanna idea that everything will be perfect every minute of every day. It’s why dogs end up at animal shelters and why people give up on businesses.
Don’t give up on your dreams. Whether it’s owning a dog or running a business. Yes, you’ll have bad days. But you’ll have a lot of good days too.
In my case, I know that most of the time I think about petting and cuddling Fiona; not trimming her butt feathers.