Over the past month that I’ve been ramping sharply up the copying machine learning curve, I’ve come to realize the value in being a beginner.  I spent most of my twenties hurrying to get past the beginner stage and be perceived as an expert.  Thinking back to when I started my old jobs, I can remember walking in the door determined to prove how smart I was, and how I already knew more than everybody else did.  I would cut people off mid-sentence to inject bits of useless trivia about equipment, just to show what I knew.  I’d refuse to ask for help, afraid to let anyone know that I couldn’t do it myself.  If someone told me something I already knew, I’d make sure that they knew that I already knew it.  In the beginning, naturally, I fell flat on my face and everybody got to have a good laugh watching the new guy go beet red.  I eventually got good at this, and learned to play a convincing humility act, while I was secretly maneuvering to impress everyone with my boundless skill and knowledge.

Believe it or not, it sometimes worked.  People would say things like “you really know your stuff.”

But this time, I decided to put an end to that.   The Copiers After Hours business forced my hand here, since pretending to be experienced in this area would fail spectacularly.  I’ve decided that this time, I’m turning my inexperience into an advantage.  And it’s worked beautifully.  Instead of trying hide my inexperience, I’m putting it out on display for everyone to see.  It’s working great so far, and people are warming right up to me.  Instead of trying to prove me wrong (like they always did when I was being a know-it-all), people try to help.  Plus, being a beginner is something we can all relate to: we’re all beginners in one area or another.  But more importantly, though, being up front about being a beginner is a good way to get dialog flowing.

I can’t wait to see what being a beginner at everything else is going to be like!

One of the things it’s taken me a year to figure out is the fact that it takes two-way conversation to create a business.  For so long, I’d read positive attitude books, studied personal development, and bought into the idea that I can think great thoughts, keep those thoughts isolated inside of my head, and that this would give me the tools to build a business.  I would often spend hours doing things like brainstorming and writing journals, hoping to build up such a strong momentum that I would just be brimming with joy and positive energy that would rub off on everyone around me, and business would gravitate toward me.

And you know what?  It sort of worked.

I started to feel more and more optimistic, ideas started coming automatically, and other people remarked that they were inspired to be around me.  People often left after talking to me, noting that they always had ideas coming to mind for hours after we’d gone our separate ways.  I’d often get so excited that I could hardly sleep.

But here’s where the breakdown happened.  It was nearly impossible to turn this into measurable monetary results.  Sure, I was getting people excited, but they weren’t paying me for that.  There was another downside: I wasn’t able to sustain the excitement consistently.  It came and went in bursts.  And when I was alone for extended periods of time, I’d get into a funk.  This is one of the hardest things I’ve had to struggle with as an introvert.

Saying affirmations into a vacuum has little effectiveness.  What has strong effectiveness is conversation.  When you speak your affirmations into someone else’s ears, you’ve now caused them to be processed twice.  When you regularly describe the life you’re intending to create for yourself, other people will start to get excited for you and see the possibilities for themselves.  Plus, they’ll start looking for ways to support you.  Finally, they’ll start to think of you as the kind of person you want to be.  That’s when life gets exciting.

I didn’t realize that, all along, it was the conversations with people that was making a difference, not the stuff I did by myself.  It seems kind of obvious now.

For most of my life, I’ve limited myself to only doing things I’m good at.  I’ve told myself that I have to be knowledgeable in order to take the first step.  In the past week, I’ve realized that knowledge is a liability.  The Copiers After Hours gig is a great example of this, and it’s shown up in more than one place.  After having read most of a book about copiers and having had some lessons from an experienced copying machine repair veteran, I still feel a tremendous lack of knowledge.  Most of the little wires, plugs, and springs inside a copying machine are things that I couldn’t even name, let alone know what they do.   Yet, starting next week, I will be the only one there to answer the phone when a copying machine breaks.  Something tells me that I should be nervous about this, but I’m not.

Actually, I think the fact that I don’t know anything about copying machines is going to be my greatest asset.  It’ll force me to be a gigantic sponge and make observations about copying machines that might make me look like a fool, because I won’t know any better.  It’ll force me to assume nothing and notice everything, because I won’t already know where to look.  It’ll put me into a frame of mind that I’ve never had to be in before, because I always stayed close to areas where I was already competent.  I never used to poke into questions that I wasn’t reasonably confident that I could answer off the top of my head.  It was always about showing off how knowledgable I was.   It was always about drawing on what I knew to find the answer.

I’m looking forward to this.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what insights pop up for introverted entrepreneurs during this experience.  I’m wondering how developing the skill of creating childlike curiosity will help my ability to sell machines and solutions.  The first thing that pops into my mind is being like a little kid in a toy store when talking to customers or potential clients about their office, starting from the assumption that I know absolutely nothing about their business.  I think that will put me ahead of most salespeople, who think they know the customer’s problem better than the customer does.  But more importantly, learning to look at everyone as my teacher is going to be interesting.

I won’t have any other choice.