Giving Up

I was talking to a friend the other week. My friend was trying to start a new business selling office partitions. She had little background in sales and she was devastated when we talked. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she had visited 10 prospects and had not closed any deal. She was ready to quit and gave a litany of why she was such a loser and why going into this endeavor was such a bad decision.

If I haven't had any experience from Royale and Suds, I believe I would have just consoled her and encourage her to look elsewhere. But my reaction was something like: Are you kidding? Quitting after only 10 prospects?

In line with my character (as some of you have gotten to know), I told her to snap out of it. That her burden was all in her mind and that there is still a lot of room to improve. That she will close her first deal if she just works on it. It wasn't the reaction she was expecting but I believed she appreciated it.

One of the lessons I have learned for the past 6 years of trying to be an entrepreneur is that giving up so easily does more harm than good.

(Before I go further, please let me explain that this is not meant to offend those who have given up on networking. I meant to write about business life in general.)

The Quit Button - I forgot the title of the book I read a while back. But the author of that book said that everyone has a 'Quit Button'. When we were young, we didn't know what failure meant so we tried hard to stand up and walk even if we keep falling down. As we grew up, we discovered our quit button, and life got a lot easier.

Fear taught us to push the quit button more and more often until sometimes, we push it even before we take the first step.

What happens then is we stagnate. We stay were we are, always afraid to try something new for fear of failure.

Is this you? Do you give up very easily now?

The book really gave me pause and made me wonder how often I use my quit button. I realized that sometimes my fear programs do make me quit even if I didn't even fail yet. One fear I had was of being 'busted' in my panliligaws which was why I always tried to look cool to my crushes. (Buti na lang sinagot pa rin ako ni Charm.)

Is the quit button ruining our lives? I have seen many people give up on their spouses, give up on their kids, give up on their dreams, give up on their lives.

Solving the Problem - It's easy to solve the Quit Button problem: make it hard to press. If you only had one hand, place the button on your elbow.

In short, scrap Plan B. Burn the bridge!

When I decided to quit employment for good, I felt very nervous. It was like being thrown in the middle of a lake and not knowing how to swim. It was terrible! I was sometimes sure I would fail.But part of me knew it was do or die. It took me 3 months of uncertainty before I snapped out of it. Now that I had nowhere else to go, I decided to succeed in my decision. Fast forward 3 years and I'm still alive and kicking, thank God.

Now, Charm, my wife and I are in a critical point again. We know that after we decided to franchise our business, things would not be the same again. This is a bigger game now, and we could not afford to give up. Again.

Looking back, we never thought we would go this far in so short a time. There were sooo many times we felt like giving up, to sell our business and just go back to work. Or go back to Davao to recharge. I remembered times when we were on the verge of tears because of frustration and dissappointment.

Now, I'm very happy we decided to move forward. To continue believing in our goals, even though I think secretly each of us were reaching for that quit button sometimes.

The good thing is: the more you delay pushing that button, the stronger you get. I'm guessing someday, we'll learn to use the quit button wisely instead of just automatically pushing it. Of course quitting has it's uses, like when you encounter a mad dog, wag ka na lumaban, tumakbo ka na. But quitting should never be a way of life.

Keep on pursuing your dreams, guys. Whatever it may be. What's a few miles of thorns and hard rocks when you're going to a kingdom of carpets, huh? Konting tiis lang. At kung malapit na talaga niyo pindutin yung quit button, sabihin niyo, kooooooooooooooooooonti pa.

I sincerely believe God feels sad when quit. I also believe that He has given us strength to accomplish our goals through Him. But we need to rediscover the strength He has already gifted us, it's in there somewhere.

Hoping we all discover the true gems we are by not jumping out of the fires meant to purify us.

God Bless!