Susan Jeffers, author of the book “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway: Dynamic Techniques for Turning Fear, Indecision and Anger into Power, Action and Love,” pretty much sells the whole message of the book in that title. Her message is that fear gets in the way of achievement and stunts your life. And it’s true, not only for personal achievement, but also for business!
Professional business people need to take many risks. Owners take risks with investments, sales people take risks to close sales (nobody likes to be told “no!”), merchants take risks on new products, and marketers take risks with promotions. As any successful entrepreneur will tell you, no risk = no success. But one risk many professional people are still terribly afraid to take is the risk to learn new technology.
But why is that a risk? Because the risk of failure is the ultimate risk for everyone.
Learning to use technology isn’t rocket science (unless you’re a rocket scientist). Most technology is simple once you learn the basic ground rules. And if you graduated from high school, can read, and are successfully navigating all the other demands of being a business-person, you can master any of the technology you need to do your job. So why are people so reluctant to learn technology? Well, their explanations sound a lot like:
· “I’m too old.”
· “They didn’t have that stuff when I was in school.”
· “I didn’t grow up with those things.”
But really, that’s just three different ways of saying, “I’m afraid I can’t learn it. I’m afraid I’ll fail.”
We’re all afraid of failure, but most fears don’t turn out to be realities! In fact, if you learn just one thing from this blog post, that’s the thing to take away. The vast majority of things people fear never come true. So letting those fears hold you back is a complete waste of time!
One thing that IS true about technology is that it is constantly changing, so that means you must constantly be learning. But if you’re not afraid of learning something new, then the constant change of technology is not a problem. What IS true about constant learning is that it keeps your mind healthy and young. Psychologists have also discovered that people who are committed to lifelong learning tend to have higher levels of happiness than people who aren’t!
So if there’s some technology that you’ve been putting off learning, dive in! You can learn to advertise on Facebook, build a custom audience on LinkedIn, create a report or query in your POS system, or add and use an App on your smart phone! Just remember to use your resources (ask Google, or a friend – or use at VDB!), be patient with yourself, and quash the fear. A whole new happier, more productive life awaits!