Never tell anyone your plans, goals or dreams UNLESS they can help you
(excerpt from my new eBook “Mind Your Own Damn business: Hard Lessons Learned the WRONG Way!” available on Amazon July 1, 2015)
As black people, we have such a dire need for approval. Mostly because it drives not just us but our desires or more important need for acceptance and approval. We must realize that people will never see for you what they can never see for themselves. If a young awkward looking, tall thin black girl from the ghetto tells her family or friends that she wants to be a model, they may laugh at her and tell her it’s not going to happen and she may accept that they are right and forget about her dream even though she grows up to be outrageously beautiful and her dream could have very well been a reality but now she’s a cashier at Wal-Mart with 2 kids. A crab in the barrel victim. The people she depended on and trusted didn’t believe in THEMSELVES which caused her not to believe in herself. This is why black black entrepreneurs should never tell someone else they can’t do something because we learn through doing business that anything is possible and our confidence to have our own businesses skyrocket to a level we never thought possible. We are keenly aware of our uniqueness.
If the potential model pursued that goal without telling her family, they would have been the same people who would have said “Yes chile, I always saw something special in her, I knew she would be a star (can I borrow $20,00?).” My cousin used to tell me “Everybody Loves a Winner” and we want to be associated with them, even if we have nothing to do with their success. That’s our need for approval on the reverse. If we ASSOCIATE ourselves with successful people maybe some of it will rub off on us. It will and it’s NO different when we associate ourselves with NEGATIVE people.
We often want to take responsibility for all that’s great and shy away from what is negative. That’s not just black people, that’s the human race. So in essence, it is best to pursue your dream and keep your mouth shut, especially if the people you want to tell have no understanding of what you are pursuing. I have to tell the truth about my people, we can be some of the most negative people when it comes to encouraging each other. We laugh at each other’s failures and we don’t compliment or encourage each other. This, of course, is where the “crabs in the barrel,” theory comes from. I learned a long time ago that the best kept secret is the one you never tell. If you want to break out of your current circumstances and there is nobody in your immediate circles who can relate SHUT UP. Find the people and the door to DO IT!
My best in business