If it’s easy, it’s not worth doing

Right now I’m so far out of my comfort zone that if the title of this article is true (and I hope to prove to you that it is), what I’m doing is worth all the gold in Fort Knox.

I can talk to a camera, I can (and did) talk to Gary Vee on his show and I can post on social media. What I didn’t think I could do is stand on a stage and talk to people about disruption in the food equipment industry. And yet, that’s exactly what I’m traveling across the country to do this summer.

My mind is blown that I said yes to this challenge. If I would have been offered this opportunity even two years ago I would have said, “You’re crazy,” and then I would have run home, locked my door and hid. So, obviously, I’m not doing this because it’s easy. I said yes because I know how hard it will be. To become the person I want to be, the person who lives a rewarding life, I have to push through what’s difficult to learn and grow.

NASA plans to send humans to the moon again as the beginning of efforts to send humans to Mars. President John F. Kennedy introduced the idea of space travel to the moon in a 1962 speech in which he said,

“We choose to go to the moon…not because [it] is easy, but because [it] is hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept…”

Every time we accept a challenge, we make the best part of ourselves stronger. We learn from every stumble and improve every piece of who we are. The process is incredibly frustrating and it’s natural to consider quitting. This is where the concept of “winners never quit and quitters never win” comes to play. Be confident that the will to succeed is more powerful than the voice in everybody’s head that whispers in a seductive voice, “Quitting is easy. Go ahead, quit.”

The will to succeed comes from somewhere deeper than where voices of doubt reside. You’re whole body is involved in succeeding. There’s a shared energy that connects us to the Australian lizard that fans its neck out and the gorilla that beats its chest – both animals physically showing they aren’t afraid. When you are committed to taking on a difficult task you pull from that shared energy to enter the same zone world-class athletes often inhabit.

Embrace challenges as if they are foolproof health supplements. Success and victory improve your life in more ways than probiotics or 10,000 steps ever will. Accept imperfection as the best teacher you’ll ever know. Try again. Try 20 more times if you have to. Find a way over, under, around or through every roadblock. Don’t stop trying until you achieve your goal.

After that, look around, because your next challenge is waiting for you. But, then, so is the reward.

There has been an internal argument among the instagram community about whether the company’s experiment to end the “like” counter is a good idea. I’d like to offer some perspective on the pro’s and con’s of the situation.

THE CON’S

The Wall St. Journal writes that this trial testing began in Canada and has expanded to numerous other countries including Sweden, Japan and Australia. This may be a big change for most instagram users.

A common misconception about the change is that it will remove your ability to “like” a post completely. This isn’t true, you will still be able to like other people’s posts however, you will not be able to see how many other people have liked it as well.

Some say that this is a small vanity metric change that really isn’t a good enough solution for the mental health problems social media is causing. They argue that this only puts a band-aid on the actual problem.

This is what a new instagram post would look like:

THE PRO’S

A major concern has been how this will effect marketing and your ability to thrive as a business. Most major influencers like Carlos Gil and even Gary Vee argue that this should not effect a well thought out, creative and authentic marketing campaign.

I would like to go as far as to say it would benefit those who are already doing well on social media. Why?

There is a human condition called “FOMO” by millenials. Where we do something simply because we have a “Fear of Missing Out”. This is what a lot of popular posts are like on instagram.

We follow, like and comment because we don’t want to miss out, not necessarily because we genuinely enjoy or are entertained by the content.

A hidden like counter will remove that from the equation, making users engage on one basic instinct…”Do I enjoy this or not?” In my opinion, this will help up and coming influencers who are genuinely talented to gain even more traction, and it will help companies sponsor influencers not based on vanity metrics but based on the quality of their content.

What do you think? Should Instagram remove the “likes” counter? Or should we keep things as they are?