You Suck At Practice

You’re really bad at practice.
As a matter of fact, you pretty much suck at it — but you’re supposed to.

Practice is your chance to try new things (and many times fail at them) so that when the time comes to do the real thing, you’ll be good (or at least better) at it.

You need a safe (but not too safe) place where you can practice floating ideas to a group and see how the other people react to them. You need to practice speaking to strangers so you can make friends and earn customers. You need practice pitching ideas and asking for the sale. You need practice defending your point of view and advice to customers and being able to win the sale (or lose the sale) gracefully.

Legendary comedian George Burns got his start as a traveling performer on the vaudeville stage. He later went on to star in in his own radio show, television show, guest-starred on other people’s TV shows, appeared on just about every talk show of his era, and acted in the movies. He won a slew of awards including Golden Globes, Emmy Awards, a Grammy, and even an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (The Sunshine Boys, 1975).

When speaking about his career and his path to success, Mr. Burns remarked on the importance of working on his material and practicing it to perfection in front of audiences during his time on the vaudeville circuit. He was quoted as saying…

With the collapse of vaudeville, new talent has no place to stink.

And Oh, God was he right.

Find your own place to “stink” and to practice and to improve.