Perseverance beats snooping (but snooping is more fun)

One of the things that has always fascinated me about entrepreneurship in general is that we want to know what everyone else is doing. What software they’re trying or the marketing strategy that went into a launch. We care about their brand colors and who designed that graphic and what camera they’re using.

It’s not a bad thing, but it is very prevalent.

Wanting to snoop in on other people’s lives or businesses is normal. It’s the basis of reality TV, and there’s a great amount of human interest in seeing how others live and work.

But here’s the problem… you’re not those people. While it’s cool to see what Richard Branson has for breakfast or how Damon John evaluates companies on Shark Tank, it doesn’t impact your immediate life.

And on a smaller level, it may be completely fascinating to learn how that coach you admire organizes her files or how the meditation guru creates a calm office environment, but if you want to work better yourself it takes more than inspiration.

(Not that inspiration is bad).

The bigger problem is that when you’re struggling, it’s easier to snoop on the neighbors than persevere and figure it out.

Probably because we’re obsessed with finding the next “new” thing in life and it screws us up. Instead of thinking that our own calendar or filing system or marketing plan is flawed and needs just a little tweak to be amazing, we’re ready to throw it out the window!

It’s human nature – small iterations are boring and we want sweeping changes.

Maybe you’ve grumbled before that every time you turn around there’s a new phone or computer on the market that makes your 4 month old tech look dated. There’s a good reason for that! Apple wouldn’t release a new model that is 2% different. They constantly push changes that you might think you don’t care about but then you absolutely need right now.

It’s one of the reasons that headlines like “20 things successful entrepreneurs do before breakfast – this will amaze you!!” are so popular. We want to know the insider secrets. Be a fly on the wall. Snoop.

And it’s appealing because maybe, just maybe, what we’re doing isn’t broken because we haven’t invested enough time, energy, or money – maybe we’re just doing the wrong thing. Time to throw those ideas in the trash and do something new!

This kind of thinking is absolutely embedded in the health and wellness industry as well as finance, entertainment and entrepreneurship.

The solution is never one size fits all; but what you can do is look for support to help you find your own solutions and execute them in a way that fits your business and needs.