The Second Time Is the Most Critical

A success strategy you need today from The Wealth Builder’s Blueprint

You meet with a venture capitalist to obtain funding for your new company, and you get shot down. Or a loan officer shreds your mortgage application before your eyes.

Those are the times when you are very likely to just give up on your dream. It can be nearly impossible to try again. But the second attempt is the most critical. It represents the time when you begin to learn significant information about what you are doing - information you need to succeed.

Part of the problem is that we are biologically programmed to avoid repeating negative experiences. Our brains try to rescue us from them. And how can our brains do that? They help us figure out ways to avoid going through the difficult experiences for a second time. They encourage us to procrastinate, avoid, make excuses, minimize the importance of what we need to do - and find many other ways to avoid going through the painful experience again.

So how to you outsmart your brain? Let me make two suggestions:

• Do not think. Just do it. File that application. Of course you will prepare carefully, but try not to plan or think too hard about just how the experience itself will go. When you are in the middle of it, you can count on yourself to know how to handle it.
• Just make a start. I have a friend who is a famous 400 meter hurdler. She tells me that when she begins a race, she is only thinking about running the first 100 yards. “After that, I will decide whether to run the next 300 meters,” she says. And of course, she always finishes the race.

Before you start a 30-minute drive to a mortgage broker, you can say, “I will get in my car and drive for 10 minutes. If after that I don’t want to go, I will turn around and drive home.” The odds that you will do that? Practically none.

So master the art of trying a second time. Trick your brain, do whatever else you need to do. It’s uncomfortable, but critical. The second try is critical. It's the time when you either secure your chance of success - or let it slip away.

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