Staying Persistent and Positive With This Technique
Staying persistent and positive are probably the two most important things for entrepreneurs to do. Sometimes this is difficult when facing 100 NOs in a row. However, if you understand the law of averages in the scenario you are facing, 100 NOs may mean you are 90% of the way to YES! Staying persistent and positive after each NO is easy if you know this ratio up front.
This is more or less the insight I gleaned from reading a blog post written by the founder & CEO of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne. Joel calls this concept Ratio Thinking. He states:
As soon as I accepted that the whole world works in ratios, that’s when it became easier. Knowing that success happens in ratios allowed me to go ahead and send that email, without worrying about not getting a response, about ‘failing’.
Read Joel’s full blog post here.
My Example of Staying Persistent and Positive Using Ratio Thinking
Applying Joel’s thinking to my situation right now was easy. I write one blog post everyday. I have done this for 50 days in a row at this point, with today being my 51st day. Looking at my numbers, I have had 14 breakout days where visitor traffic spiked. Using Joel’s ratio thinking I now know that it takes about 4 days to have a breakout day.
Now, I can stop worrying about my traffic numbers everyday. I can also stop feeling disappointed when I write a post that doesn’t breakout. Instead, I will stay persistent and positive each day. I will keep my focus on writing inspiring and insightful commentary and let the universe take care of the rest.
Can using ratio thinking change your outlook on something? Can it even change your life? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s worth a try. What ratio can you find in your life that will help you stay persistent and positive? Please share.