Do What Others Aren’t Willing to Do To Be Successful — Have Your Dollars Make Sense
What does it take to become successful? There are certain qualities most successful people share. Hardworking, yup. A little bit lucky, absolutely. Dedicated, you got it. If we all know what we have to do in order to be successful, what’s holding many of us back? The simple answer to me is that most people just aren’t willing to do what it takes to become very successful.
A few years back, while looking at available franchising opportunities, I came across one for a chicken wings restaurant. I thought to myself, “Hey, I love buffalo wings and there is never a good place to get them around here”. After looking at some of the financial requirements and looking at my family situation, I wasn’t quite ready for it.
Fast forward a few years, I’ve seen my net worth increase massively and my kids are now a bit older. I went back and revisited the idea of opening a wings place in my head and a thousand questions filled my mind.
Could I really do this? How do I even get started? How much could I make? How do I run the store? I remember wanted to take that first step, but something was holding me back…fear.
My biggest thought was that I couldn’t possibly have been the first wing lover in my area to think of this. I live in northern New Jersey, one of the most densely populated areas in the country. I know there is good money here and there is just a ton of sports teams, which in turn means sports fans. If anything goes hand in hand, it’s chicken wings and sports.
My other biggest thought was that if this was such a great idea, why hasn’t anyone else done this? I must be missing something, I kept doubting myself. The more I thought about it though, the more it made sense. I even have several medium-sized universities near me, that along must be worth looking at the idea.
After years of dreaming about it and a few weeks of deliberation, I finally decided “Screw it, I’ll just see what the franchises think of my idea and go from there.” I mean, what harm could come from just asking? Franchises don’t want to open new locations that they think will fail, it would make any sense, so I finally took that first step.
What I found out is that everyone I talked to thought it was a great idea, my area had very good demographics and my financials made me a great candidate to be an owner. The other thing I found other, is that just getting started was a ton of work.
Information about the franchise fees, CPA’s, construction, SBA Loans, locations, and a million other things were being thrown at me. I talked to countless reps for each of these pieces of the puzzle to try and gain as much information as I could before signing on with any given franchise.
Just finding the right franchise took weeks as they all had their pitches I needed to go through.
So where am I going with all this? Glad you asked. The further I got into the process and dove headfirst into the world of franchising, I realized why no one else was doing it…it’s really freaking hard.
Seriously, I’d be willing to bet there are hundreds of thousands of Google searches for “Passive Income” each month, but very few for “Working hard for money”, it’s just the way our society is these days.
What I now believe makes people successful is that they are willing to do what others aren’t to be successful. For all I know, many other people started down the same road I’m on and decided it was too hard, too risky, too complicated, too something that deterred them from doing it.
Don’t get me wrong, for as excited as I am to be going down this road, it’s equally as terrifying. Truly in my heart, I know this is a good idea and I know I’m more than capable of doing it, but that doesn’t stop the doubts from coming in. Every now and then I stop myself, take a deep breath and reassure myself, this is all going to be awesome because it is.
If you want to be successful, I mean really successful, you’ve got to be willing to do what others aren’t willing to do. Not just that, you need to block out the naysayers. Many people will say, “What do you know about doing x” or “You can’t do that”, but that’s only because they aren’t willing to do the work, you are.
I know I’ll need help and basically, everyone I know has offered to help in some way, which is fantastic, but 99% of this is on me. My success at this point will be a direct result of how much effort I put into the restaurant, which again, is super exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Hopefully, if you take anything away from my adventure into owning a wings restaurant so far is that you can’t be afraid to do something just because others aren’t. If being a restaurant owner was easy everyone would do it, but it’s not. Everyone wants passive income, which is great, but it won’t get you to that next level of success. I’m ready to put in the work now, are you?
Originally published at https://haveyourdollarsmakesense.com on November 11, 2021.
