“Are you crazy?”

If you have ever been asked that when discussing a business opportunity with a friend, take comfort: you are not alone. Here is an excerpt from Beach Money by Jordan Adler:

“Phases of Acceptance:
1 – When you first share your business idea, you are labeled as crazy.
2 – Once you have some success, you are labeled as visionary.
3 – When your business idea makes you wealthy, you are labeled as lucky.”

I have met Jordan, but I did not ask him if he knew about a similar, well-known list:

The 3 Stages of Truth in Life:
1 – Ridicule
2 – Opposition
3 – Self-Evident

In life, when a new idea is proposed (for example, “the Earth is round”), people think you are crazy. They laugh at you. They put you down. They make fun of you. I mean, come on, certainly YOU cannot believe something that THEY do not know to be possible or true. Next, when they see that you are not backing down from your belief, they sometimes get more belligerent. They actually oppose you. They do so because you are (in their minds) making them look bad. If they don’t get you to stop believing and/or working toward your new truth, they will REALLY look bad. As a result, sometimes they will step up their effort to quench your dreams.

Then, after you have persisted, after you have proven them wrong by staying the course, by making your dreams come true in spite of their opposition, they will say you got lucky. You got into the business at the right time – or some other excuse why you made it work when they could not.

The same thing happened with Christopher Columbus. With Dr. Martin Luther King. With Jordan Adler. With me and my wife.

And the same thing may very well happen to you – but ONLY if you are willing to go through the first two stages.

Are you? Are you willing to be called crazy? To be laughed at, put down, made fun of? I hope so, because I do not know anyone in life who did not have to go through some personal ridicule in order to make a large difference in their lives. It may be challenging – but it is WORTH IT!

Start today to work through the first two stages in order to get to stage 3. Life truly is sweet when you get there – and, besides, they can call you anything they want then, because you will be living the life that they can only imagine!