I’m a sore loser. Strike that. I hate to lose.
Growing up, I often played my brother in sports games on the Nintendo or Sega. As older brothers often do, he consistently crushed me. My reaction wasn’t pleasant. If the game was close and he delivered the knockout blow, I’d deliver my own – by slamming the reset button and forcing him to start over. To this day I’m surprised he kept playing with me knowing my tendencies.
Fast forward to current day. I decided to pick up chess. Playing against the computer… (some things don’t change) I got soundly beaten.
Except this time is different. I’ve been reading a few books. Studying tactics and reviewing instructive videos. Lo and behold, I can now hold my own with the computer and even win some of the time. Now my goal is to continue to increase the competition level and eventually play against a real human.
Becoming better at anything takes time and practice. In this day of immediate gratification, it’s easy to forget that you need to put in the work. Gary Vaynerchuk said it well: It’s this notion that is so prevalent right now, which is that you can just come out of nowhere and build your brand through various tactics.
There is no substitute for putting in the hours. Unless you want to try hitting the reset button, but I don’t think you’ll make a lot of friends that way.