You might have heard business advice before that goes something like this: “Surround yourself with people who’ll tell you when you’re wrong”
Or maybe you’ve heard the famous John Wooden quote "Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you."
Well, I’d like to propose a minor edit to these types of statements that apply to those starting or running small businesses:
“Surround yourself with people who want the best for you and encourage you in the beginning so you don’t lose momentum, then later find smart people who you trust to give you advice on how to make things better”
Emmm… not really a beautiful sentence but I think it’s a lot closer to the truth.
Sceptical people will only hold you back in the early years of starting your business and gaining momentum.
They’ll tell you why your ideas won’t work, why you’ll fail, make a fool of yourself and do this all under the guise of “helping you out”, or playing “Devils Advocate”.
Here’s the thing: It’s so hard to actually get started with running a business, even with getting your first paying customer, that all you really need is encouragement.
Sceptical people warned me against starting a Youtube channel because it would cheapen our brand. (It’s now responsible for millions in profit)
They said I should avoid online courses because they would cannibalise my consulting work. (It did the opposite, and it added an extra few million to the books)
Sceptical people are always at hand to give you advice on why you should NOT do something rather than encouraging you to try, rather than egging you on they want to sap your energy and stop you before you even give something a go.
So whether it’s in your friend group, your team or even your advisors: I’d advise staying clear of sceptics and devil’s advocates until you hit your first million in revenue.
Cheers,
Jonathan
P.S. Everything you’re doing is wrong, you’re a bad person and someone already tried that thing you want to try and failed.
We give way too much credit to skeptical people. They come off sounding intelligent by disagreeing. This is something they practice. Their goal is just to take the opposite stance and they are rarely called in their shit.
I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by ‘challengers’ in my career. Folks that I knew I could bring early stage ideas to, people who wanted to see me succeed but challenged me strongly. These were safe conversations that allowed me to recalibrate or redirect my thought process and be better prepared.