Most of the time when we try something new we try to hide it.

We try not to make all the mistakes that we assume new people make. Once in a while (1 in 100) it works and we stumble upon something that we are a total natural at.

But for almost everything else in life, its pretty obvious that we are no expert the first time we try something. In fact, most of the time we downright suck at it for at least a year.

When I started doing brazilian jujitsu I was terrible at it. Every week for about 3 months I would go in and just get tapped out over and over again. It was pretty discouraging at times. I remember the first day I actually submitted an opponent (won) after about 3 months. He had just started and was even more inexperienced than me, and he promptly beat me again in the next round, but still…I had actually seen a little progress.

This is true for learning marketing, how to start a business, how to play the guitar, go on a date, throw a pitch, or dance salsa. Pretty much anything worth learning in life is like this.

A lot of people live their entire lives in a perpetual state of mediocrity at everything they want to learn just because they don’t want to admit to other people that they aren’t an expert. They aren’t ok being bad at something for a while.

They even get defensive if someone gives them advice. “Why would you even say what? I KNOW how to do that.”

I have the utmost respect a for totally clueless person who at least knows it and is eager to learn. I’ve been that person a bunch of times in my life.

But there is nothing more challenging to work with than a totally clueless person who argues with every suggestion.

I heard a cool parable one time about a man who wanted to learn from this old guru who lived on top of a mountain. He hiked up there, found the man, and told him his desire to learn. The old man said “very well, before our first lesson let us sit and have a cup of tea”. The old man began to pour the tea into the cup of his visitor. He kept pouring till it reached the top. He kept pouring and pouring until the tea had run over and was getting everywhere. The man leapt up from his chair and cried “stop! the cup is full!” And the guru said, “your first lesson is to know that I cannot add any more to a cup that is full. For me to teach you new ideas, you must clear your mind of what you already know”.

Do yourself a favor and admit when you’re clueless. If you’re not getting the results you want, let whatever ideas you have go and be willing to try anything that someone who IS getting the results suggests. You’re not fooling anyone anyway, they’ll admire the honesty, and you’re learning curve will go up drastically.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first.”
-Unknown