I was listening to a story about a friend’s son who was experiencing his first “crush” on a girl in his class. His wise mother told him that he should simply ask the girl out. The boy’s reaction to this advice was one of fear. His mother looked him in the eyes and said, if you really want something bad, sometimes you have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable.
This lesson is brilliant and immediately struck me as something far more applicable than to just adolescent crushes. It is in fact the key to growing and evolving as a person. Take, for example, the leap to become an entrepreneur. Anyone who has ever started a new business will immediately resonate with this advice. In order to achieve greatness, you have to develop a mindset to constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone. When you look back, the obstacles that caused discomfort are now less daunting and can be replaced with new levels of discomfort. This is the essence of entrepreneurship. The craziest part is that when the comfort of an exit results in financial independence, some chose to do it all again because they realized they were not all that uncomfortable. It’s just the awkward position a giraffe has to get into, to drink water.
Author: Scott MacDonald, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital