11 Penn alumni performances you need to check out

You’re Not Ready for Success: A Parable
by Valerie Paule
www.ValeriePaule.com

Are you currently or were you recently in a situation where you think you need more to get started in order to accomplish that thing that you’ve been meaning to do? Maybe you think you need more money, more time, more resources, more contacts? I’d like to address this subject, but I’m gonna change things up a bit on how I present this information to you today. I’d like to engage you with a parable to drive the point home.

I present to you a tale about a woman named Amy, her life coach Jonesy and her business counselor Hillary. Jonesy and Hillary counsel out of two offices in fairly close physical proximity to each other in Van Nuys, CA. Now these two give very different advice and on one particular day they are advising the same client, Amy.

Just a little bit about Amy: Amy has a dream, a pretty big dream. She wants to travel the country promoting her new brand of fitness instruction. See she recently created a brand spanking new dance fitness idea. There’s nothing on the market like it. She has enthusiastically decided she needs to create videos showcasing her idea and start getting her stuff out there. Here’s the thing though: She knows what she wants but doesn’t quite know how to get there…she doesn’t think she has the capital she thinks she needs to get there . . . so Amy goes to see her counselors Jonesy and Hillary.

Jonesy’s 2 cents goes something like this: “Alright Amy you’re not making much income right now and you said you need money to get your idea off the ground, but what do you have? You have passion and a great idea and that passion you have is what will propel you to stick through with your idea when things get challenging. You also have a high quality small Panasonic Lumix camera you won at a raffle. That thing takes great video and you’ve got an 8 gig memory card so it will allow you to record and save quite a bit of video. You also have a pretty decent movie editing software on your computer so you can put together an interesting mini-movie or even create a workout series on the web. …You’re not a professional editor and it doesn’t matter. . . you need to showcase what you can do. Simple is okay in this case. You’ll definitely be able to get some great footage of yourself with your fitness idea. Let’s see what else you do have…you have those 3 credit cards you rarely use. They’ve got a few thousand dollars available between all three if you absolutely need to buy something. So with that being said let’s get yourself an affordable website and you can create a webpage to put on your business cards to let people you meet know what you are doing. There’s tons of marketing tips on the web on how to make your website appear in search engines, which will even drive more traffic to what you do. You have a Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter account so you can begin driving traffic to your site by consistently marketing on those accounts. I think you’ve got a lot to work with. You’ve got everything you need already to succeed. Let’s get started!”

Amy then goes to get Hillary’s 2 cents, which goes a little something like this: “You’re not ready to promote your supposed new brand of fitness. First of all, you need to check YouTube and the world wide web to make sure what you think is unique is really unique. You don’t want to get sued later on now do you after working tirelessly on this project? Your camera’s okay but it’s too small. . . You need a bigger camera with a real tripod. You want your stuff to look professional right? Your Panasonic Lumix is not a professional camera. You can’t get the best shots with the Lumix you’ve got. You also need an editor and someone who actually knows what they’re doing with a camera in order to shoot you in action. You’re not ready to get out there and let anybody know about what you’re doing, let alone travel the country teaching it. No one’s gonna pay you for this you’re not a professional. And I wouldn’t go charging ANYTHING on credit. How will you pay it back? You’re not making enough income for excess expenses right now. Wait until you have some more money and wait until you’ve figured out if you really do have an idea worth promoting. Just my humble opinion.”

After much deliberation, Amy got scared and decided to side with Hilary. She justifies waiting until she can straighten out her finances a bit and then with extra money move forward on hiring an editor, camera person and website developer. So she does nothing.

Fast forward 2 years later. Amy’s financial situation has improved slightly. She’s still an exercise instructor at her local gym and received a promotion at her 9 to 5. She’s even begun teaching at 3 other gyms in the area. She’s pretty satisfied with her life although she never got her fitness idea off the ground. Life happened and she just never took action on it, always finding a reason why she wasn’t ready to do this b/c she didn’t have something she needed in order to do it right.

One day on TV Amy’s watching some talk show and the featured guest is a newbie to the fitness scene promoting her new workout video. This gal is an energized fitness rock star and very enthusiastic about her new fitness craze. In the interview the talk show host asked this woman about the origins of her new fitness program. The woman replied, “Well, about 2 years ago you wouldn’t believe it Montel, but I started with a balance of negative $32 in my bank account, a cheap video camera and 3 credit cards that had enough credit on them to buy me a good looking and cheap website as well as subscriptions to local groups where exercise enthusiasts and sponsors frequented. I just kept creating tons of videos from my apartment and going to every fitness convention in the area that I could. I passed out business cards with my website & told everyone who would listen to me about my new idea. Then doors started opening for me and long story short, I’m here. I didn’t have a lot to work with materially or financially in the beginning, but I had everything I needed to get to where I am now.”

As Amy watched this interview a lump formed in her throat. As Amy listened to this woman’s story she was amazed at the immense similarities in their stories. She remembered her conversations with Dr. Jonesy and Dr. Hillary from 2 years ago. This new fitness star on TV could have been her. They had almost the exact same conditions starting out.

This is a parable so what’s the lesson?

Everyone has a Jonesy and Hillary within themselves, outside of themselves, period. One who will try and convince you that you are not ready to succeed at whatever is in your mind or heart because you don’t have enough money nor the right resources nor this nor that etc. ad hesium ad nauseum. Then we also have that side that says just go for it. The new fitness star on TV clearly opted to listen to her Jonesy. Amy decided to listen to her Hillary, the side of her that says we need something in order to get started. The question is: who will you decide to listen to today? The choice is yours.