I Sucked And You Can Too
Recently I told a cycling friend of mine how much I made selling graphic designs online last year and she was impressed. She said “I’ve always wanted to do that, but I suck at it”. I replied “I sucked, and you can too.”
When I started trying to sell graphic designs online I really did suck. Bad. My ideas weren’t great, and the execution of my bad ideas, meaning the designs themselves, were often really shitty. Not every one, but most.
I remember getting my first sale on Redbubble in 2016 and I was stoked. It was this standup paddle boarding design.
The design idea was to take a generic college logo and make a fake “sup university” for people who are really into standup paddle boarding, like I am.
Someone bought that on a single sticker and I received a 29¢ royalty. Twenty-nine cents. Even though it’s an amount that many would see lying on the street and not bother to bend down and pick up, I was stoked!
But I had to keep creating designs – bad designs – to get to a place where I started creating better designs. Now I make 20 – 50 sales a day and have made over 21,000 sales on Redbubble alone!
Worst Start Ever
I recently heard the NFL Hall of Famer quarterback Brett Favre on a cycling podcast of all things (he’s a big-time rider now!). During the conversation he detailed his first ever pass attempt in the NFL.
Let’s just say although it was technically a completion, it didn’t exactly go to plan and it was a horrible start.
I can’t embed the video because it’s official NFL content but you can watch it on YouTube. Witness 22 year old Brett Favre in 1992 starting his NFL career out in a less than glorious fashion.
So he completed a pass to himself for an 8 yard loss. FAIL.
Hearing him joke about it and describe it on this podcast was great. He made the comparison to his 50 year old self now still learning as a novice cyclist.
First off, his pass was blocked as he failed to throw it clear of the defender. He at least was lucky enough to be able to catch the deflection, but he screwed up big time again because he tried to run. A quarterback is taught to always just go down in a situation like that when they unexpectedly find themselves with the ball.
No, he was gonna make a play out of it. In the end he lost 8 yards. He could have been broken in half by those massive defenders. He’s not Lamar Jackson, he’s not a mobile guy.
On the podcast he described how he made about 4 big mistakes in that one play, and how he got an earful from coaches when he went back to the bench.
That was the official NFL start of one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game.
What A Mess
God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung
-From “Bastards Of Young“, The Replacements
Face it, you’re a mess sometimes. I am too. I went rock climbing for the first time in 1998 and man I wish I had video of that day. It’s probably comical. I went home all cut up and bloody and barely made it to the top of the wall. But it was fun, especially when I had friends ruthlessly making fun of me.
The first time I stepped on a standup paddleboard I immediately fell right off the other side into the water. For a while I thought “this ain’t for me”. Now I have two boards and never fall. I actually teach others to paddle.
My blogger friend Chris Mamula recently did a post about being a beginner. He lamented that he’s 45 years old and still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up.
Hey Chris, I’m older than you and am clueless too. Thankfully I don’t plan on growing up anytime soon, haha.
More seriously, I realize that whatever I start to throw myself into, I’m going to be a beginner and most likely I’m going to suck at it. Thankfully I won’t be in a situation like Favre where I have to suck with millions of people watching. That’s gotta doubly suck.
I’m writing this post to let you know that what is now over a $20,000 a year business for me started as something I sucked at. And to be honest I sometimes still spend an hour on a design only to come back to it the next day and realize it sucks.
Just as Brett Favre was still making bad plays at the end of his career. The career that put him in the NFL Hall Of Fame as one of the greatest quarterbacks in history.
So let’s all get out there and be beginners. The time to suck is now.
I played the piano for years and got quite good at it when I decided to try the guitar.
I thought if I was good at one instrument I would be pretty good on an another. I was wrong. It was hard to go from making great music on the piano to playing like crap on the guitar. In fact after about a month I quit playing guitar in high school and thought I would never pick it up again.
In college I decided to give it one more chance and with a little persistence for pretty decent at playing it.
Now it is my favorite instrument and I prefer playing the guitar over piano any day
As you know I’m a guitarist too, and I also tried piano for a while hoping it would help my understanding of scales and such. I really enjoy guitar a lot more.
I failed many engineering exams and still turned out to be an okay engineer. I think Hank Aaron went 0 for 5 in his first career start. Even Brett Farve has the record nobody wants, most career interceptions.
I’m not saying I’m on the same level as Aaron or Favre, but everyone messes up from time to time. Michael Jordan had a great quote about this.
“I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
I love that Jordan quote, while it’s not ideal to focus on your failures, it is important to remember them in context. Good stuff
I’m just getting off the ground with a FI blog of my own, and while I don’t think the content sucks, I’m definitely horrible at marketing it 😅
Posting on FB and IG are fine… but most people I know just aren’t into personal finance (let alone financial independence).
Interested, Dave, in how you first got started on the blog from zero? Any beginners tips? Congrats on how successful it’s been!
I just started writing, plain and simple. I did write about 7 or 8 articles before posting any when I started so I had some content on the blog to dig into. My biggest piece of advice to a beginner or anyone for that matter is to be authentic and tell your story. No one else has your stories, that’s what differentiates you from everyone else.
Thanks for the mention sir.
WOW! I didn’t realize you were older than me. We better get outside and do an adventure together while our old bodies are still working.
Cheers!
Chris
Haha, yeah.. yes we need to do something! As for age, I’m working very hard to keep my body in it for the long haul. So far it’s going well 🙂
Hey, hey, hey. Nobody under the age of 60 gets to “old man talk”‘ That’s my turf so “Get off my lawn!”
Very encouraging! Thanks! I initially started my FI blog several years ago with all the best intentions wanting to share my journey and what I had learned along the way. I threw a few posts out and then sat on it for a few years as life got busy. I attempted to start it back up last year (thanks for my logo by the way… 😉 and again wrote a few posts. Finding time is sometimes difficult, but I’ve realized I struggle with severe imposter syndrome, and often I begin to write something and never finish it because of fear that it just outright sucks. Thanks for writing this. It really made me think that perhaps i just need to roll with it and get better with time.
Just write and post. There’s billions of people out there, your audience will find you 🙂
Do you have any swag with the Delaware Canal State Park logo? I tried searching but came up empty.
Right now I do not have that park but could make it for you if you’d like. I have one main style of state park at the moment which is this graphic based design. I could also do it in some of the national park-based designs that I have but many of those have a mountain graphic but since the delaware canal park does not have mountains that might not work. But some are not mountain based such as this, this, and this. Let me know if any interest you.
i heard dave grohl say the same thing about playing music. just strap on a guitar and suck and have fun and eventually suck less and then get decent and then pretty good. it’s the same with investing if you ask me. go ahead and make a few mistakes when you’re young and dumb but don’t know you’re dumb yet. do it when the stakes are lower and nobody is watching.
that’s just great what you have accomplished with your design business.
“young and dumb”… that might be the name of my memoir if I ever write one. Thanks for the kudos bro!
Excellent points Dave!
Practice and perseverance are key to rising from “I suck” to “I’m getting better”. Congrats on the success with your design business and accomplishments!
I have to confess, your blog has inspired me to keep creating content. Without a doubt it’s been a challenge with a steep learning curve. After two years, everything’s finally coming together and know we’re on the right track.
Thanks Shannon, as with anything just keep at it. I’m not the best designer by far but I’m persistent and I keep showing up!
I too “sucked” at paddleboarding, and now have my own board and can do yoga on it! Same for mountain biking, painting, electrical work, and negotiation. Everything is a muscle that can be finessed to a point where we are comfortable, and then we can look back with confidence on everything else.
Nice Gary! I suck at yoga on a stable floor so that’s something I probably won’t be trying on my paddleboard, haha
Kind of how I feel about blogging. Keep doing something I suck at while learning more about various topics and getting writing reps in. Financially worth it for the tens of dollars I make on Google Ads!
You could look at it as hundreds or even thousands of pennies 🙂
As a person that sucks at just about everything, I really appreciate this motivational post! Now I feel like I need to go start a micro-business or something 😉
Cheers for the great post!
Dude, you DO NOT suck at money. Not in any universe