2 weekends ago I was pruning a branch that was unruly. The branch was maybe an inch thick – nothing too terrible.
Before I go on you should know these 3 things about me…
- I can be pretty dumb about some things.
- I am outdoorsy, but not the best at yard work/gardening (my wife is great at it!)
- I’m pretty weak.
So I got the pruners and started to prune the branch which was above my head. It wasn’t budging.
Like I said… I’m pretty weak.
So I decided to place one handle of the pruner against my rib cage and place both hands on the farthest handle. I pulled the farthest handle in towards me while using my body as leverage. I pulled as hard as I could.
See #1 in the list above.
Needless to say, I heard a horrible noise. It sounded like I was holding one of those plastic red Solo cups and decided to crush it in my hand.
I dropped the pruners and… well, I’m not gonna lie… I shed a few tears. It hurt like a mofo.
I waited a few days to see if the pain subsided (it didn’t) and then went to the doctor’s office. They had to take an x-ray to make sure I hadn’t cracked a rib.
Luckily I didn’t.
Now Here’s the Lesson…
After I shed a few tears I hobbled over to my wife (who was in the front yard) and told her what happened.
She said to me “Why didn’t you just have me do it? You know I do this stuff all the time and besides you were using the wrong pruners. No wonder it didn’t work.”
To be fair… she made sure I was okay first 🙂
Now that I’m almost back to normal and can take a deep breathe again… I’ve thought a lot about this incident.
And the lesson I learned is this…
- Use the right tools.
- Use your resources.
- And stick to what you’re good at.
Seriously. I wish I had learned this in business when I first started. I did everything myself and because of that it took me so much longer to really ramp up and make the kind of money that I wanted.
If I would have focused on my strengths and outsourced the rest I could have reached more people and helped more people sooner than I did.
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