Just ONE Thing
Hard Today, Easy Tomorrow: A Wake-Up Call for Shop Owners
Episode 217
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ, and this is my Just ONE Thing.
So what am I going to talk to you about today? I'm going to talk to you about HARD. And here's why. I saw a video over the weekend. It talked about hard, and I thought about it. And I think the lie that we tell ourselves is that the opposite of easy is hard.
I want you to write this down: the opposite of hard is harder.
Let me explain what I mean.
Every path that you go down is going to be hard, right? But you really have a choice where the hard is. Okay? Let me explain what I mean by this.
Exit scheduling is hard. Dealing with empty bays is harder.
Holding a tech accountable is hard. Dealing with comebacks and tension are harder.
As I'm going through this list, if I'm stepping on something that you're smelling, please give me an amen in the comment section.
Saying or setting boundaries to a customer that's going overboard is hard. Letting that customer demoralize your team? That's harder.
Building your processes is hard. Constantly answering the same question is harder.
Financial reviews every week is hard. Not being able to make payroll is harder.
See, every one of us is wired for comfort, and we want to believe that comfort. We just want to have that comfort. We want to enjoy that comfort.
But when you're enjoying comfort—ooh, this is a good one, write this down—when you're enjoying comfort, you're avoiding hard. Okay? And when you're avoiding hard, the consequence is harder. That's what I want you to get.
You're either going to be fighting fires or you're going to be preventing them. Okay? And it's hard to prevent when all you're doing is fighting and tolerating.
Does this hit with anybody? Can I get anything going here? I just want you to see what y'all think about this.
Because here's what I want to help you do today. What I want to help you do today is understand that you either have a challenge or you have a consequence. It's your choice. You have a challenge or you have a consequence.
Here's another one that is a really good one: Building a bench is hard. Y'all know what I mean, right?
Recruiting and having people ready to go and come onto the team is hard. Dealing with somebody, reacting to somebody leaving, and hiring someone that's Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right is harder.
Y'all get what I'm saying here?
So it’s even harder if you’re stupid. John, I don’t think it’s that we’re stupid, right? It’s the story we’re telling ourselves. We’re so busy reacting, we don’t ever get an opportunity to put ourselves on top and start to challenge ourselves, right?
Because I don’t know about you, but I would rather pick the hard. And you know something? In business, I’m really pretty good at that. But I’ll be honest with you—completely personally, I’ve let that go.
I have made later my friend:
"I’ll get healthier later. I’ll do exercise later."
And I’m telling you, I’m starting to deal with things that are a consequence of not taking care of myself. So that’s changing.
That is my commitment today to you all—that today is the day I start truly changing how I show up physically, so that I can continue to do what I want to do. It’s super, super important.
So what I want you to do is I want you to start realizing:
You can either be a victim of harder or you can be the creator of hard. Okay? That’s what I want you to do.
So instead of saying to yourself, “Hey, this is just too hard,” I want you to ask yourself:
Which hard do you want to live with right now?
When you’re working on challenge-hard, when you’re working on growth-hard, that creates momentum, confidence, and capability.
In other words, you know what’s on the other side of that hard? Easy. Okay?
But when you’re in a void, when you’re in chaos, that’s going to breed resentment, it’s going to breed stress, and it’s going to breed regret.
This is truly, truly important to hear. And I’m gonna ask you please to share this. Okay? I want you to share this because I think this video could help somebody.
So I’m gonna ask you something. I’m going to ask you—this is your call to action:
1. What’s one uncomfortable conversation that you’ve been putting off?
Have it. Choose hard.
2. What process needs to be created in your shop?
Choose hard.
3. What do you need to say no to that’s hard today, so that you don’t have to deal with the harder tomorrow?
Because the reality is this: Owning a shop is always going to be hard. But you get to choose whether it’s the challenge that leads to growth or it’s the harder that keeps you stuck.
Does that make sense?
I hope this does to y’all. So later is not your friend. Tomorrow is not your friend.
Do the hard today so that you can have the easy tomorrow, and avoid the harder. That’s the whole thing here.
I hope this makes sense to y’all. If it does, please share the video.
Also, we have our Shop Owners Round Table, second Thursday of every month, 7 PM Eastern. Would love to have you be a part of it. It’s absolutely free. There’s no selling or anything like that. We are strictly there to help shop owners overcome some of the challenges they have.
Other thing—if you’d like to get involved with our Pocket Business Genius webinar series, it’s a great way to get a little bit more of this kind of wisdom anytime you want it.
So here’s what I want to just tell you:
Choose your hard. Okay?
Use the challenge and push through to have ease. Or avoid now—because you’re not really living the easy life.
Comfort is not a great thing. Comfort—when you’re just trying to stay comfortable—you’re going to find that comfort zone get smaller and smaller. I’ve talked about that before.
Don’t avoid. Because avoiding—we all know—you’ve got that sword hanging over you.
Choose your challenge. Create your growth. Have the easy on the other side instead of the harder.
Okay, everybody—
I want you to have an amazing week.
Go knock it out of the park, and I will see you all next week. Guys, go make some money.
Take care. Bye-bye.
