Let’s talk about mediocrity.
I’m a founder at Mantry, we’re coming up on ten years. If you would have told me when I was young that I would be shipping mustard and jerky for ten years I would have said why not twenty years.
My own accountant snarked the other day that maybe “this is your decade to make it big”. He did not say it with loving encouragement, it was the way a passing janitor yells “don’t quit your day job” when he sees you practicing your soliloquy late at night in the high school auditorium. My OWN accountant was busting my balls.
I’m going to talk about something that is never talked about on business blogs or podcasts or Tim Rogan or Joe Ferriss, complete mediocrity. I’m talking soul sucking, toiling away in obscurity, 10,000 hours of average. I’m talking about getting up everyday at 5:15am and meditating and journaling and doing burning the midnight oil and making as much money as a bartender at Applebee’s. No offence to bartenders at Applebee’s. For 10 years, day in, day out. Brainstorms, and sales sprints, PR blitzes and 250 audio self help books, hell, more Tony Robbins than I care to admit to. All for what? Your accountant to try to land a knockout blow, to mock a decade of sweat equity. I have so much sweat equity I could buy the moon.
But who cares? Nobody. I’ve enjoyed it all. I’m lucky every day I wake up in New York City and get to go to work and toil away on this dumb business that ships bbq sauce and mac and cheese recipes all over the nation. It’s about 0.000001% of the problems that most people on this planet have. So next time you’re feeling down, you want to quit, you’re mad your new venture isn’t taking off! Put on your favorite song, rip off a blog post and complain in 10 years.
-Reggie Milligan, Founder, Mantry.com
