You Have To Love The Grind

I got a good night sleep Saturday night.

Woke up late. Crawled out of bed. Grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on my porch enjoying the last of the spring flowers.

A few minutes later my youngest son pulled in the driveway.

He got out of the car whistling. He was singing the phrase ‘loving the grind’. He had just gotten back from the gym and apparently had a pretty good workout.

As he walked by me into the house, I stopped him and commented. I told him that I usually use the phrase ‘the grind’ as a negative… as in consulting is a grind. Sales is a grind. Building a company is a grind. I found it interesting he was using the word as a positive when lately, I’ve been using it as a negative.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but without skipping a beat he looked at me and said… ‘well that’s your problem’… and walked in the house.

His comment hit me like a ton of bricks. It smacked me in the face. Hard.

A couple of days later, I was meeting with a young couple considering starting a business. They had a pretty good idea but needed help thinking through how to get started.

I get asked for this kind of help quite a bit, and one of the things I always suggest, is to think through what it’ll cost to run the business, how much they can sell their product for, what kind of margin they can expect, and how many units they’d have to sell in order to make a living doing whatever it is they want to do.

I ask them to think through what it’ll take to build a marketing engine, a sales engine, to do their finances and accounting. What it’ll take to actually produce the product and get it into the hands of their customers and provide customer support. Then I ask the question, can you actually see yourself doing this?

Why? Because building a business is a grind.

You have to love the grind.

As I sit here writing this, somewhere along the way, I stopped loving the grind. I think I had some sort of expectation… that at some point.. the grind would stop. The reality is this. Being healthy is a grind. Being married is a grind. Raising kids is a grind. Building a business is a grind. Doing the right thing is a grind.

I don’t think it ever gets easier.

You just gotta love the grind.

Thanks Noah for reminding me of that.

Attitude adjusted.