Do You Have What It Takes?
An aspiring producer meets with a potential investor to pitch his movie. The producer wears a watch a Patek Philippe Calatrava to send the subliminal message that his movies are successful and that this project will be a good investment. The watch is a fake. The investor wears an even more impressive piece: a Rolex Cosmograph. It’s fake as well.
The difference: the investor has the genuine article in his safe at home; he just doesn’t like to subject it to casual wear and tear.
It’s not a bad thing to project confidence and success while you’re working hard to get your first break. In America, especially, you’re expected to to pitch big and make bold claims. “I have a decent product that I hope will pay the bills some day” is not likely to persuade any investors. But at some point, the claim has to be backed up by the genuine article.
So how do you know that you have what it takes to get that metaphorical Rolex in your safe? Here’s one indicator:
The ability to reframe criticism as helpful feedback. I love to watch the show Kitchen Nightmares. In each episode, Michelin chef Gordon Ramsay comes alongside a failing restaurant to to help them turn things around. 90% of the episodes contain some version of the following scene:
“Owner: I have no idea why we don’t have any customers. Our food is fantastic. Gordon Ramsay is our last hope.
Ramsay (after tasting food): Your menu is outdated, and the food is disgusting because you use cheap frozen ingredients.
Owner: You don’t know what you’re talking about and no one tells me what to do in my own restaurant.”
To no one’s surprise, most of these restaurants end up closing.
It’s hard when you have a dream and someone rains on your parade. And not all criticism is helpful; people may be jealous or they may be projecting their own insecurities onto you. So how do you stay open to helpful feedback and filter out the rest? Mike Sill, CEO & Co-Founder of Sunday Scaries, offers the following formula:
“Identify the people you trust who have your best interests at heart and possess sound judgment. I recommend listening to them actively and ignoring most of the rest. These aren't the only individuals who will levy valid criticism against you, your leadership or your company, but they can help you assess outside negativity and decide which things are worth taking to heart.”
This happened to me not too long ago. I thought I had come up with a great idea: put together a team of medical translators to compete with translation agencies for big clinical trial translation projects. In my head, it was a certified winner: higher profits by cutting out the middle man (agencies) and more work because we wouldn’t have to wait around for agencies to contact us.
I contacted a highly regarded translator in the field to see if she’d be interested, and we had a Zoom meeting to discuss the idea. She was very kind, but she also brought up several logistical issues that make my idea pretty much unfeasible. After thinking about ways around these issues I decided it would be better to pivot and find a different target group, which is what I did. It was not a fun meeting, but she saved me a lot of time and money I would have spent on recruiting, marketing and client acquisition, only to discover that we couldn’t deliver. There would have been no Rolex in the safe, just empty promises.
Who are people that you can trust to speak the truth and who have your best interests at heart?