I teach digital marketing to many different audiences each year, so you would think that I would place digital marketing knowledge at the top of the heap for leading to success. But I don’t. You see, after all these years, I have come to realize that overcoming your own fear of making a mistake is the most important characteristic of successful digital marketers.
Ten years ago, I wrote the first book on agile marketing, Do It Wrong Quickly. What I have come to realize was that the most important part of do it wrong quickly is the do it part. I thought that people needed to be told to do it wrong. I knew they needed the quickly part. I was wrong about both. But at least I learned that quickly. All right, it took ten years.
Most people don’t do it. They’re talking about it. They are about it. They think about it. But they don’t do it.
It’s fear. I thought it was fear of getting it wrong. Now, I think it is fear of doing it at all, because other people see what you did and have an opinion. We want so much not to be criticized that we would rather duck and cover than try. We are that controlled by what other people think that we’d rather do nothing.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Instead of worrying about what others think, be willing to take a shot. And another. And another. And…another. The real secret to success is bravery. And resilience. The bravery to give it a try and the resilience to try again if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t take knowledge. It doesn’t take brains. It just takes the fearlessness of going for it. Anyone can do it. You just need to decide.
