Nobody is above hard work

Guest post by Nicholas Holland.

I made a mistake. And while I’m not sure what “an honest” mistake actually is, I can tell you that this mistake was shameful and I hope to avoid making it again. Simply put, I got lazy. Let me further explain…

I’m one of the original founders of the JumpStart Foundry program and I’m currently a mentor for RentStuff. Over the summer, I pulled my weight as a mentor and worked hard for the RentStuff team. As a result, they gave me the honor of introducing them on the official pitch day. To prepare, Michael Burcham (president of Entrepreneur Center) asked that every mentor come to the ‘Practice Pitch’ session so they could receive constructive feedback.

Here is where I made my mistake

Instead of preparing my speaking points and practicing my delivery, I whipped out a few ideas off the cuff and delivered them from memory the day of the practice pitch. After my delivery, I sat down and felt pretty good about my performance. In fact, I distinctly remember looking around the room and feeling smug that I was one of a few mentors that even bothered to show up. As the RentStuff pitch came to a close, I switched to checking my email/twitter/facebook while I patiently waited for the panelist to deliver their constructive criticism to the young entrepreneurs.

Imagine my surprise when the first judge said, “I actually have more feedback for Nicholas than I do for the RentStuff team. Nicholas, that was a terrible introduction that droned on for way too long and told me practically nothing. Your delivery was awful, full of ‘umms’, and you had your hands in your pocket. I strongly encourage you to prepare your intro and practice before pitch day.”

I was speechless

I’ve been a CEO for the past 9 years and I haven’t had anyone talk to me this way in a loooooong time. However, I was speechless because I knew at my core that she was right. I broke a cardinal rule – I was lazy and tried to wing it. But the shameful part is that my actions could have had a negative impact on my team – entrepreneurs that have poured every ounce of their souls into preparing for pitch day. Thank the stars for the structure of the JumpStart program – I needed a wake up call.

For me, the biggest take away from this situation is that age and success are not a substitute for hard work and preparation. In fact, I shared my thoughts with Michael Burcham (who is far and away more successful than myself) and he shared that less than a week earlier he stayed up late into the night preparing for a speech the next day, practicing in front of a mirror. The scarier part for me is that I’ve seen this characteristic in myself in the past – but I’ve always thought my ‘awesomeness’ is what allowed me to wing it. Now I realize that I wasn’t awesome – I was lazy… the only difference was that I didn’t have a judge giving me feedback.

I hope future Mentors will learn from my lesson. If you were barely involved in your team’s success, you were lazy and ill prepared for this summer. If you didn’t come to the pitch day and expected to wing it, you were jeopardizing the future of the very people you agreed to help.

Bottom line: There is no substitute for hard work and preparation, regardless of your age/experience/success.

Hear more from Nicholas Holland in episode 10 of Jumpstart. Listen Now.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

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Categories: Blog
Tags: hard work, mentoring, mentors, Michael Burcham, Nicholas Holland, RentStuff