I’m scared. There I said it.

Now that that is over I’ll explain myself a little more. 

Today at work we had our weekly meeting for how we did the previous week.  We killed it.  Ok great.

One of our top guys booked 54k in margin (revenue, for the uninitiated to EL, is what we really go off of here and what commissions are based off of).  This guy is a top dawg and his payout is just about 10% of margin he books.  So he made 5.4k on top of his already $500-$1000 paycheck that he has weekly as his base salary depending on his exemptions/promotions etc.  That is just crazy to me.  I mean I know about half of that will go to taxes and some will go to his team of helpers, but man alive that is a lot of money to me.  Turns out that is chump change.

I knew/know we have some big agents that work for EL, but I didn’t really quite grasp how big until this meeting.  As I was sitting there listening to the report a buddy of mine started talking to me about how 54k is small change to how much our top 2 agents make.  One splits his margin with us of him getting 80% and us 20%.  Basically we get our 20% because we offer our name as a front to customers and the agent can have access to slightly better rates that they may not get.  Our top agent does approximately 70k in margin a week and only has 12 people in their office.  That means even if paying each person 1k a week leaves that guy making at least 40k himself, every week.  Well over a million per year.  Apparently he’s got a full sized basketball court at the office…lol.

The next guy in line has a 70/30 split, generates 25k in margin each week, and only has one other guy in their office so he’s closer to pulling in 20k a week in paychecks himself.  That is just crazy to me.

I want a 70k in margin week.  I want it real bad.

I get scared though of trying for it for several reasons.  I’m scared of failing.  I’m kinda scared of succeeding, but I don’t know why.  Maybe cause I’d feel bad to succeed while others struggle.  I’m scared to try and fail cause if I failed then that would “prove” an aptitude test I took a while back that it was wrong and I don’t want it to be wrong.  My aptitude test said I’d be good at small specialty businesses, which after working in corporate America for several years now, would be a welcome change. 

I’m also partly afraid of making this come to fruition:

"In our dreams, we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning, or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply…The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shops and on the farm." - General Education Board, Occasional Papers, No. 1 (General Education Board, New York, 1913) p. 6. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Education_Board

What I mean by fruition is that I’m afraid that my failing in one or any kind of business would prove that these douches have won the battle with me specifically in that I’m not a “man of…” and I really really really dislike these guys and don’t want them to win, but part of the battle is already won with them in that they’ve got me so woosed up in my head that I don’t even want to try things.  How jacked up is that?

So what is the problem with all my previous thinking?  Well there’s probably more than one.  A big one, however, is the mentality of all or nothing.  Either or.  That isn’t how life is though.  If I don’t get my tank filled with gas before work doesn’t mean I can’t get some after (at least not yet lol).  If I don’t pay my credit card bill today doesn’t mean I can’t pay it later.  I’m not accepting the fact that there is not only either or, but “this AND that”. 

I may fail many times at many different things, but doesn’t mean that is the only thing I can try and do.  As it pertains to business, my brother stated that while 9 out of 10 businesses fail, that just means I need to start 10 businesses to get one to work.

I’ve been wanting to build an app building business and learn more coding and had approached it as either or.  I hadn’t been approaching it as “and”.  I also hadn’t been approaching it as small baby steps, which I need to do for those things.  My first baby step for coding from yesterday is that I signed up for treehouse.  The next baby step I think I need to do on my business is a plan and goals.  Then maybe some powerpoint demonstrations of what kind of apps I could build for people.