Shortcuts

It is human nature to want to get a job done as quickly as possible. Like you cross the street between intersections instead of using the zebra crossing. Or you jump a fence instead of using the gate.

It is not your problem!

Most of us have grown up being told that it’s important to accomplish as much as we can. But what we often aren’t told is that rushing can result in accidents, errors, and more time spent in the long run.

It is often not worth it.

Warren Buffett, the investing legend, says, “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

This rule applies to almost every sphere of life. Some things just take time.

When I started on my own in 2011, and was seeking ideas on how to grow my following, I received two contrasting advice –

1. Buy it (it’s quick; many online marketers can arrange email databases at a price; damn privacy!)
2. Build it (it’s slow)

I just hated the first advice of buying a following. My understanding was that what I had to do to build a real, sustainable following was to –

1. Offer people something they would want to read,
2. Promise them exactly what I intended to give them, and then
3. Create stuff that was so good that people wanted to share it.

This seems to have worked. My investment education website now has 45,000+ readers across the world, and I have never paid a single rupee to build it. No advertising, no buying databases, no online marketing…just word of mouth.

I believe that if you take your time and keep your promises, you would build what you deserve to build.

I have met a lot of people over these years who have wanted to know about the shortcuts I used to build my tribe. And my answer to such people has always been that if there were shortcuts, people smarter than me would have found them already.

The truth is that there aren’t many actual shortcuts.

There are direct – often long – paths, but no shortcuts.

Nature doesn’t work in short cuts. How can we?