I can’t watch auditions for American Idol
Have you ever sat and watched the auditions for American Idol?
There are thousands of people that step up to the plate and take a swing at a solo singing performance for thirty seconds in front of live judges. Out of each city’s tour from the mass of men, ten or fifteen surface to be worthy of being selected.
Most don’t have what it takes
Most do not have the skill set, gifting, beauty and grace of voice to continue. But they arouse enough courage and fortitude to risk rejection to say “at least I tried”.
And there are a few that simply cannot see that even on their best day there is such a wide gap, there is no way they will ever make it.
Their friends and family keep telling them that they should be famous.
The combination is a person with no talent, but unwavering conviction and hope. I can’t watch it. It is painful to see it unfold.
Especially long after the rejection and tears they are still unable to entertain the possibility that their hope is greater than reality.
What does this have to do with us?
At first, none of us know which group we will be in.
When you start the equivalent of singing in the shower it is too early to tell if it will amount to anything of substance or livelihood.
Hugh MacLeod started doodling at the bar on the back of business cards, now he is smashing it, writing books, selling original art to his tribe. Hugh’s Book, Evil Plans is a great read.
Leaving the comfort of a career
And then a few friends and family start saying, “@MannyLadis you should leave the comfort of your 15+ year career selling Enterprise Data Center services and start a Cloud desktop computing company.”
@MannyLadis is part of a revolution of new Cloud providers off-loading the nonsense of IT desktop management to instead deliver the same applications without all of the headaches.
When you start shipping it, dreaming about it, going for it, you don’t know which group you’ll be in.
- Selected to play
- Tried, but does not have what it takes
- Shouldn’t have even tried
You won’t know at first.
You should try and gather up the self-confidence and courage to go for it.
You should listen to solicited feedback.
You should ignore a lot of what you hear.
And if your mom’s your only fan, that might be an indication that you should rethink your plan.
