Why or Why Not?
When presented with a new opportunity, do you look at what could go wrong, or how it could fail? Do you ask yourself “Why should I?” Or, do you focus on the positive outcomes and ask “Why shouldn’t I?” Too many people place their emphasis on the negative, not the potential. After all, the easiest thing to do when presented with an opportunity is to do nothing.
Listen to this new 7-minute episode to hear how you can change your focus to achieve more and have more fun, in life and business!
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– Why or why not? Listen to this episode, see what I’m talking about.
Hi, it’s Alan Berg, welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I was just listening to a book by Phil M. Jones. He wrote the book “Exactly What To Sell” and you’ll hear him on the podcast here. I’m not sure if it’s right before or right after this. I think it’s a little bit after this. And he’s got a few other audio books and regular books too, I’m sure, but he’s got some audio exclusives. And he said something that I’ve been living by and it, I think it’s worth sharing over here. And it’s the difference in attitude between why should I or why not?
And for myself, I had to flip that a long time ago because as a much younger person I was a why person in a couple of ways. One is why I want, I like to know how things work, so why do we do it this way or whatever. But also when trying something that was out of my comfort zone or asked to try something out of my comfort zone, I’d be like, hmm, why? Why do I want to do that? And I flipped that. I think it was because of some, I think it was around the time I had some health issues and it just changed the way my thinking was like if not now, when? Right? Like, why not? Not going to get into it. It’s in my book, “Your Attitude for Success.” But I’ve had heart issues since I’ve been in my 40s and I went skydiving eight months after open heart surgery. Why not?
We actually have T-shirts that we got in the gift shop after we landed that say, “Skydiving, what’s the worst that could happen?” Well, clearly there’s a big worst that can happen there. But for me, after having gone through major surgery what’s the worst that can happen, already we passed that and it didn’t happen. So why not? And I’m not saying you should jump out of an airplane. No, I’m not saying that. You do that if you want to. Use a tandem buddy so they know what they’re doing but it’s just in general with life. My good friend Rob Faray talks about being the first on the dance floor. I used to not want to go out if I didn’t know the dance steps because I didn’t want to look silly. And then I realized, well, why not?
And I remember back when I was at The Knot I was VP of sales at The Knot. We had a holiday party and I was out on the dance floor just with people dancing. And I went over to the bar to get some water and one of the founders was there and he looked at me, he said, “Alan, you’re always in the middle of whatever’s going on.” And that didn’t used to be the case, but he said, “You’re always in the middle of whatever’s going on.” And I say, “Well, it’s because I’ve learned that the people doing are having more fun fun than the people watching, right?” The people doing it are having more fun than the people standing along the wall watching those people doing that. And I now appreciate the person on the dance floor that’s not a good dancer but just so much into it. It’s like, yes, they’re living their best self not worried about what they look like because they’re having a great time.
And if you’re not and you’re watching them and they’re having a great time because you’re afraid of looking silly, you know, again, as Rob says, be the first on the dance floor. But, but why not? Why not? Like I, somebody was talking about writing a book recently, and there were all these reasons why they couldn’t do it. It’s like, well, why not? Why not just start writing, right? I have 10 books on Amazon now in English and most of them in Spanish. So there’s probably 17, 18, whatever it is over there. And I remember the first one, I didn’t know what I was doing and I just started writing words. And that’s all I do now. I don’t write books. I write words. Why not? I have some that have never turned into a book. I have some where I’ve started and they didn’t finish. Maybe I’ll get to it, maybe I won’t.
But why not just put the effort into something that’s meaningful for you? I don’t write books to make money. And believe me, unless you’re Stephen King or you know somebody like that or maybe you get lucky, like Marie Kondo or whatever you write a book and it takes off, or Harry Potter. But most authors are not making money from their books. There are different reasons for doing it. For me, I want you to have another way to consume the content that I have. Some people get it better by reading or audio books or in Kindle or, you know.
So if you need my books in Spanish, there they are in Spanish. And it costs me more to make those books translated into Spanish than I’m ever going to make on them. But that’s not the point. If there’s one person that wants it that way it should be that way for them. If I’m at a conference and somebody talks about a book and it’s not on audio, I’m not going to read it. ‘Cause I just know these days I don’t get to read paper books, but I consume more than one audio book a month because that format is working for me.
So why not read a book if you don’t have time to read it? Do you have time to listen on the way to the, you know, with your, you know groceries or to the gym or on the way to a gig? You know, why not? So we can make it easy for ourselves. Take the easy route and say, well, why should I, right? And we can think of all the things that could possibly go wrong. And I did a podcast about that. What’s the worst that could happen? And certainly with skydiving, I had what’s the worst that could happen? Or you could live life and say, you know what we’re only going around once as far as we know. You know, if there is reincarnation or whatever we don’t know that, and we will find out or not at some point. But as far as I know, I’m only going around once.
So not being reckless, not being stupid but going outside my comfort zone and saying why not is where the fun might happen. Again, not doing stupid things, not being reckless, not doing illegal things. But why not try something new? Why not, if I don’t do it well, how could I be expected to? And that’s again, with my languages and with the the TaeKwonDo I started at 39. I didn’t start it as a kid, I started it later. And think about all the things that you’ve done where you maybe you didn’t articulate, why not? But you just went for it and you just did it.
Could you channel that and do that more in your life? Could you raise your prices? Could you expand to a new area? Could you take on staff? Could you add more services? Could you, what could you do that you could take some action? And instead of worrying about what could go wrong, you worry about, not worry about, but you focus on the results that you could get. And if it doesn’t work, then we learn something also. And then you keep moving forward, right? If you don’t move forward from the mistakes you’re never going to succeed on anything, ’cause the road is filled with those potholes.
So next time you’re thinking, why should I? Just take a moment and think, why shouldn’t I? Why not? Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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