Over and over again we see that everyday life and owning a distillery shadow each other (I think this number is actually low). I have been hearing a few things, lately, that really bring this into perspective.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step:
We’ve all heard this and it is pretty obvious, wouldn’t you say? Except that it is amazing how many people talk themselves out of the first step because they look at the end goal and tell themselves, “I can’t do that!”. Which brings me to my favorite Henry Ford quote: “If you think you can or can’t do something, you are correct”. Believe it or not, the adventure and knowledge gained is in the journey not the goal. The goal is the excuse for the journey. Just take one step at a time and keep on taking steps.
Shoot for the B+ not the A:
I know I am going to get some flak for this one but look at it this way; you are a baseball player and every time you are up to bat you swing for the fence. It’s either a home run or a strike out (Babe Ruth was also the strike out king) or you can just try to hit the ball and get on base safely (you’ll get on base safely a lot more frequently and have a few home runs to boot). This reminds me of another favorite quote (I will attribute this to Rich Roll because I heard it from him first, although I believe it is used in AA quite a bit) “Strive for progress not perfection” Don’t expect to be perfect in everything you do just strive to do better, if you make a mistake get up, evaluate what happened, make adjustments and try again.
So you’re saying to yourself, “If I wanted self-help jargon I would look it up somewhere, just give me the answers!” People, these are the answers. Contrary to popular thought there is no easy way. Do the hard work and you will reap the rewards. Besides think of the last time you were given the easy way, you probably didn’t really appreciate it as much as when you earned it.
When most people look at a business or person and they decide they want to do that. What they are thinking is that they want the finished product. When they learn how much time and effort went in to getting to their present place, they balk, complain and generally make excuses. They want the “easy” way and they don’t see the problems associated with having that business or lifestyle.
In our case, we wanted a distillery and for our sins we got one. Now we get to work 7 days a week for as many hours as we can squeeze in with minimal pay (minimum wage would be a huge raise). We now have sleepless nights (anxiety or if the alarm goes off, generally at 3 or 4 am, one of us gets to get up from our comfortable bed, go turn it off and deal with the police, who have answered the alarm call). We also have the knowledge that if something is going wrong with the company we are to blame and we get to fix it.
On the plus side, however, is that we own our own company and are the Captains of our destiny. We get to bask in the glory when someone gushes over our Spirits and when the company makes it big we will be the beneficiaries of all that hard work. We will have earned every penny and we will be grateful for it all.
There are no guarantees in life, except Death and Taxes, and a business can fail for many different reasons. In the end though, personally, I think it is worth the effort.