How Being Bold Gets You What You Want In life
There are bold people who are smart. There are smart people who are bold. There are bold people who are wealthy, and there are smart people who are wealthy. But, in my book, the BOLD get what they want far more than the SMART do.
Smart people are too polite. They take what is on offer. They don’t want to be seen to be rude, and they don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. We call these people “high EQ.” For you bold people, EQ is emotional intelligence. Twenty years ago, the craze on MBA courses was to learn about leaders with high EQ. Students were encouraged to aspire to be high EQ leaders.
“Be aware of yourself”, they said.
“Be aware of others and how you impact them”, they said.
Fast forward 20 years, and high EQ has morphed into being WOKE. A side effect of the academic wave of wokeness is self-censorship. We are so scared of triggering the sensitivities of those who might melt if we say something “inappropriate” that we instead say nothing.
Bold people can get in your face. They can be demanding. They ask for what they want. Not getting what they want is not seen as a failure. It is seen as a need for another tactic.
Bold people don’t overthink things. Action counts for more than planning. Taking action means that bold people get feedback and can change direction or tactics.
Bold people don’t nurture their unique idea. They’re not precious about their ideas. They know that an idea is worth nothing if it is not acted on. Bold people have lots of ideas and lots of opportunities. Bold people are ok with failing. A failure of one idea is not a failure of all their ideas. They move on to the next one. The famous baseballer Babe Ruth missed 90% of the pitches that he swung at. Fear of failure does not hold back the bold from taking action. Not taking action is seen as the ultimate failure.
In a survey of 160,000 Americans who believed that they deserved more money, two-thirds didn’t even ask for a raise. Of those who did ask, 70% got what they asked for. Bold people ask for a raise, expect to be promoted, and lead important projects.
I challenge you to do something bold today. Push yourself to that thing that you have been thinking about for way too long. Take action! It’s the smart thing to do 😊
Justin Spencer-Young
