You Have to Suck At Something First

Ed Sheeran is now one of the most successful musicians alive with Grammys, record-breaking tours, global hits, and sold-out shows. But he’s very clear about breaking the myth that all successful artists are born with talent. Some certainly are, but he wasn’t (take a listen):

Ed Sheeran is now one of the most successful musicians alive with Grammys, record-breaking tours, global hits, and sold-out shows. But he’s very clear about breaking the myth that all successful artists are born with talent. Some certainly are, but he wasn’t (take a listen):

That’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

We love excellence. We admire mastery. We quote the success stories.

We even admire the grit and determination it takes to get better. And he certainly had that. He played small pubs around England for almost three years, being paid in beer, sleeping in train stations, and performing to empty rooms. He put the work in, and that's an important leadership lesson in itself.

But I think a less-talked-about and more interesting lesson is this: people like Ed are more willing to be publicly bad at something. They’re willing to stand in the part of the process most of us avoid: the phase where you’re awkward, unsure, unpolished, and objectively not great yet.

And yet, that’s where every skill is born. That’s the real beginning.

Leadership, communication, speaking up, presenting, coaching, building a business, writing, dancing:  all of it starts with doing it badly. Not because we lack talent, but because that’s how we get better.

We’re so afraid of not being good immediately, that we avoid the phase that would eventually make us great.

One of my coaches says, “You don’t become successful by gaining confidence; you become successful by unlearning embarrassment."

I say, “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

Every expert has an era they’d never want on YouTube. What’s yours going to be?