Things that piss Vlad off

Monday, time for the weekly pep talk.

There are really only two things that piss me off about this blog and I’m pretty sure that you won’t be able to guess them. If you scroll through the comments you’ll find plenty of examples.

“Dude, you work too hard..”

Oh really Jimmy Joe Bob, have you discovered the f’n missing link between the hard work and success? What do you think, someone just gave me all this one day for the good dental hygiene? If I was born with all this knowledge then I sure wasted a lot of damn time in college, in webcasts, in seminars and on the road taking in conferences, training folks, giving speeches.

If you are waiting for someone to just “give it to you” then go stand in the unemployment line.

“It would be great if I could get all of that without having to work for it..”

I get a lot of this on the phone too.

Oh, I would love to have you just teach me step by step what needs to be done in each situation.

Oh, I don’t like to read, can you make a podcast about it?

Oh, I wish I could do that but I just don’t have the time, could you sum it up for me?

Oh, I know you write about that stuff all the time with over 2,500 posts on vladville.com but could you post it again because I have an attention span of a shit fly.

In my years on the road and working with the partners I’ve had the joy of meeting a few idiots. Maybe a handful. I’d say less than 50 in total. Considering how many people I know, thats nothing. Most people I work with are very smart. All these people have plans, have process, have ideas, are executing. What are they executing? Not a whole heck of a lot, judging by the fact that they have the same problems year-over-year and don’t seem to have made an inch worth of progress since the day I met them.

Why? Cause it’s hard. I have to keep on learning. Things keep changing. I’m too stressed, I can work only 3 days a week and if someone is rude to me I need a mini vacation.. Are you kidding me? Does that even work for four year olds? Why in the world would it work when you’re fourty? Hint: See point #1.

Everyone keeps on looking for a shortcut. There must be some process that you’re not in on. All the people that are growing and prospering must have some trick that they haven’t let you in in. Maybe I should just peer up with others who have as little clue as I do or maybe I should keep on revising my plan every two months?

There is no secret. There is no shortcut. There is no peer solution for lazy. There is no magic blog post to cure cluelessness. There is no lifestyle buffer between business ownership and unemployment.

You just aren’t working hard enough. Really, that’s all there is to it. Read all about it in my upcoming book “SMB ENTERPRISE WHITEPAPER”, available as a preorder for $49.95. Condensed for the busy professional on the go, just one page, just one paragraph.

Stop making excuses. Stop at looking at the grass on the other side of the fence. Stop thinking you’re special. Stop looking for motivation. Just take a huge break from all the things you are doing on the side to distract yourself from working on what you’re actually supposed to be working on.

And if the prospect of that brings you down, if you can’t find energy in what you do, if you aren’t up at 2am trying to get better at what you do and aren’t willing to work hard and be happy with the blessing that is the ability to build your own company and serve people in your own way then why the f… even bother pretending? For a set of steak knives?

It’s Monday. Are you here to work or not?