Last week my nephew came to stay for a few days. He’s 6 and the last thing his dad said was “Remember son, no rude words while you’re with your Auntie Ingrid”
He’s a boy and he’s 6 and he loves saying all the rude words: bum, fart, poo and of course his dad doesn’t allow those “rude words”. His mum laughs which of course just encourages him.
We headed to the beach for a swim in the surf and as we were doing some stretches to limber up before we went in the water Riley said “Auntie Ingrid, my swimming teacher said I need to strengthen my core muscles and mummy said you’d be able to help me”
This was a bit of a surprise to me, I’m not sure I knew about core muscles when I was 6. Riley does TaiKwonDo and while he has balance and strength apparently he needs to work on his core muscles for swimming.
Having done yoga and Pilates for many years I was ready with a few core-strengthening exercises for Riley. As we got going I said
“Less bum Riley and more core”
“Auntie Ingrid, you are not allowed to say bum” and wagged his index finger
“Well, Riley, you have muscles in your bum”
“Oh, you mean my glutes?” he said in his little matter of fact manner
Then I remembered the “no rude words” instruction
“You know Riley, we have one Pilates instructor who says “bum” All The Time?! When we are doing an exercise where the glutes/bum has to work really hard she says “get that bum working, bum bum bum” what do you think of that?”
Wide eyed Riley says to me “I want to be a Pilates instructor and then I get to say “bum” all day long”
I’m still chuckling to myself about this.
And at the same time it does make me think about how we perceive what other people do. We only have an inkling of what others do in their jobs, in their businesses. For Riley, the Pilates Instructor gets to say “bum” all day. He’s 6 and he sees this as a great job doing something he loves.
I see examples of this every day. People come to me with a great idea for a business and in many cases it is a great idea and they are passionate about it and they “love doing it”
They see other people running similar businesses and they are enthused that they could do similar.
One of the biggest mistakes I see Startups making is Underestimating what is involved …. And this can take many forms.
- Underestimating the time it takes to ….
- Underestimating the necessary skills to ….
- Underestimating the capital required ……
- Underestimating the energy needed ……
- Underestimating the competition …..
- Underestimate the importance of building the right Team …..
- Underestimating how important it is to plan ….
- Underestimating the benefits of asking for help ….. Early!
I could go on and I think you probably understand what I’m saying here. It is really easy to underestimate many aspects if business and especially when in Startup phase.
What is your version of the Riley perspective? What is your version of the “Yay, I get to say “bum” all day” perspective?
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