Over the weekend I attended a conference in Chicago, Illinois with a company I have been working with for over a decade. Though the years I have met some fascinating people and had some incredible conversations. This weekend was no exception. One phrase is sticking out to me throughout the weekend though.
A guy named Eric made the statement, “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” The moment he said it I initially filed it away to think about later as he continued speaking. However, it also then stuck into my brain… anything worth doing… worth doing badly… is it? The more I thought about it the more I realized the brilliance of this statement.
15 years ago we started a website that was to say nicely, hideous. There were was little to no content. It was aesthetically atrocious. If you could do something wrong with a website from design to html too content… we did it. However, as time went forward we started figuring things out. As we learned to figure out how to build a website, we also learned how to create content and create community. We slowly got better. We slowly went from a terrible product to one we are quite proud of now. Is it perfect yet? Nope, but we are continue to do it and I’m pleased to say that we don’t do it “badly” anymore.
Fast forward a few years and I met a guy named John. For some crazy reason we thought it’d be fun to throw together a youtube show together. 9 years ago, GEEKS CORNER was born. Our first episode was bad… really bad…. embarrassingly bad… incredibly hard to watch today bad…. however, it was a starting point. Today, we are comfortable on camera. We have microphones and real video cameras! We even have a set instead of a porch! On top of all of this, we have made friendships with our team and our viewers that will last a lifetime!
As I think back over the last couple of decades some of the most rewarding things in my life have come from some of the most terrible of origins. What we started with was, in a word, bad. Things were bumpy at first and it took quite some time and quite a lot of work to figure out how things worked and then get better. Now I can thankfully say that we have moved away from bad as we strive for greatness! The things that have become so worthwhile in life started out by us doing them badly. While I didn’t realize the lessons I was learning as we built these things, my friend Eric pulled it all together this weekend in that one simple statement: Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
What is worth doing in your life that is worth doing badly? I can tell you this from experience, there is only one way to get from the “doing badly” point to the “worth doing” point is by taking that thought or that dream and acting on it. Then, get going one step at a time and work through things to get to that point where you someday realize it really was worth doing badly. Second, surround yourself by the best people you can find that build you and your dream up! As you do both of these things, put your fear to the side and focus on where you want to go! As you continue to keep laser focus on that goal you will work through the hard part of doing something badly and really find just how rewording and worthwhile pursuit of a dream can be!
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