'There is no mastery without feedback. but it is hard!'

bySaraPoyner

1.7K followers

Updated 5 years ago

This piece of wisdom comes from a Tweet from Professor, writer and motivator Brene Brown and a book by Greg Reid called 'Three Feet from Gold', that I read on the first day of my Mining adventure.

Firstly Brene Brown tells us 'There is no Mastery without feedback, but it's hard.' It is really scary and difficult to put yourself 'out there' and to offer up a piece of you or something you have lovingly written or created, to get advice and criticism, but you cannot Master anything if you don't 'Dare Greatly' and get the feedback.

When you make your first website, or write your first post or review, you are open wide and vulnerable. I know when I did my first post, I had no idea whether it was right, I had no clue if my website was any good. I was scared to ask and put it in for site comments.

Then it came in the training that I had to do it. I still resisted and jumped it in the training. I kept thinking 'My site isn't good enough, or ready for someone to look at it'. But here is the thing, Your site is online! people can and are hopefully going to be looking at it. So put every article you write up for feedback and advice.

To those who seek

If you are seeking the gold it is essential that you get expert help, or at least get an outside eye to your writing and problems. A Master knows when to be the teacher and when to be the student. Mastery of something is gained by knowing that there is always something you can learn, always someone you can consult.

In the very famous 'Three feet from the Gold' story told by Napolean Hill in his book Think and grow rich, a man called R.U. Darby got gold fever and bought a mine. After a lot of work Darby found a vein of gold in his mine and started to mine it. However, he did not consult any experts.

He mined enough gold to clear his debts and started another day of mining, knowing that everything they mined now was pure profit!. But on that day the gold ran out. After a while of digging and only getting dirt he downed tools and quit.

As the team were leaving the site, a junk man came by and Darby sold the mine and the equipment for a few hundred dollars! The junk man went and consulted experts about the mine and they told him that Darby had been mining the wrong way, the vein of gold ran vertical and Darby had just dug through a mere portion of it. The junk man went back and dug out millions of dollars worth of gold!

R.U. Darby heard about the Junk mans millions, but he didn't give up or quit life, he learned from this lesson and went on to make millions in the insurance industry, because the lesson he learned was to persevere through the difficulties, stay focused, and to seek expert council on things he knew nothing about, and a second eye on those he did.

The 'Three feet from gold' saying is banded about quite a bit, whenever someone openly admits they want to quit we all respond with comments of don't quit, keep going, you are only 3 feet from gold! But what if we or you are not three feet from gold, what if we are mining in completely the wrong direction, or Niche? What if we are mining the completely wrong way or not using knowledge or tools that can make the job easier or quicker?

Are we really only three feet from the gold?

After taking a break, I now pop in and read some blogs and noticed a few about quitting, or changing Niche's or becoming frustrated at the lack of results. I noticed that the majority of the comments were motivational words of encouragement, saying 'don't quit', keep going!

But then one post caught my eye, a member had been here eight months and was struggling to get traffic and had no sales. Now on the face of it, we would all normally jump on the 'Don't quit, it takes time for Google to trust your site', bandwagon. But this post peaked my interest to actually take a look at the website before I commented.

The website was trying to be all things to everyone and had mixed three different Niches's. The core of these three Niche's all had the potential to be good and successful on their own, but all mixed together it was causing confusion. So I commented, in my humble opinion why I thought it hadn't been successful yet, but that with some improvements and switch to focus on one Niche it could possible work.

This website had been moving forward and the writer had been working really hard for eight months without knowing that they were drilling right over the gold. So if they had followed the normal 'don't quit' advice they could have just been continuing to work hard with very little results for years!

This got me thinking, what if there was no gold there at all? What if the Niche or the style of website is never going to make money? What if we are just not destined to be affiliate marketers?

Is there a time when quitting is the right thing to do?

There have been many things that I have quit and many things that I have perservered at. In both categories this has bought both success and regrets. The one true regret I have is often not seeking help along the way.

I am a bit of a control freak, and I have to admit, I don't like having others in charge of me or telling me what to do. I am also often living scared of what people think of me, or what I do. So it was very rare that I would seek feedback or advice. Until I decided to follow my soul and quit my very successful job as a Financial Adviser and go back to university to study Theater Arts!

Everyone around me thought I was crazy (and still do), but it was 3 of the happiest most fulfilled years of my life! The only way I got through gaining my degree so successfully was I asked for help, I searched out the experts in the field and gained from their wisdom. I asked tutors to read my work and give me feedback. Did I start University and expert in the field of Theater Arts? NO! Did I finish University an expert in Theater Arts? No!. But what I did do is learn 'There is no Mastery without feedback, but it's hard.

It takes more courage to ask for help, than to persevere alone, and it sometimes takes more courage to quit then it does to stay. But here's the thing, whenever those urges to quit come, ask an expert or get an outside eye.

Get feedback on your articles, get feedback on your website. Because it maybe that with some help it can become a great success, or it may be the best advice to quit that website and start a new one, and that is OK! It could be that you have been mining straight over the gold, or it could be that there is no gold there at all

Nathaniell (My coach) wrote a great article about this, and it was advising us new guys, that our first websites don't necessarily have to be a success! the success is in what we learn along the way. This is true of our second, third, or any website we put our hearts and souls into. They don't all need to a homerun. You can read his post here:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/nathaniell/blog/your-first-w....

To those who comment, give feedback, coach, guide and help

Do not enter giving feedback, like a teacher with a red correcting pen. When asked to give feedback, or when offering feedback, it is essential to remember how you feel about getting feedback. What is the goal of this feedback? To stroke an ego, to be nice and leave without offending someone? or is it to really help to give your expert opinion or to be an outside eye? Are you looking at it like a reader? and then re assuming your role as looking at it as an affiliate marketer?

To be able to give successful and constructive feedback it is to be able to master all of these (except stroking egos, there is no need for any of that here). It is being able to look at someones website or article through the eyes of a reader, and then through the eyes of an affiliate marketer.

Then give that feedback in the kindest most compassionate motivating way, even if your opinion is that there is no gold to be mined in the Niche or website. Sometimes it is more compassionate to rip the band aid off than to keep covering over a truth with more! However, offer a new perspective on ways to either improve the article, or website, or if there is no gold, offer advice where it might be better to mine and the training that might help find the gold!

The receiver of this feedback then has a choice. They can carry on regardless, they can try to make amendments, or they can quit and start again. Learn the lessons and move on to a new mine, a new niche and website.

If you are a coach, this kind of service to your network will enhance the length of time people stick around, it will build a community and team of success, but more importantly, connection through feedback and guidance.

Feedback commitment

Brene Brown also offers us what she calls the 'Rumble Commitment', so when giving or receiving feedback remember this:

• Be prepared to offer your point of view
• Stay aware of emotions and how they affect me
• stay aware of emotions and how they affect others
• Listen and look with the same passion with which you want to be heard or seen.
• Stay in the messy middle

And I am going to add one of my own be constructive, but be kind and compassionate.

Some Final Advice - There is gold in them there hills.

There is gold to be had out there. But not every mine has it, it may well have already been mined. Yes you may only be three feet from the gold, but you could equally be three thousand miles away from the gold!

Without feedback you are never going to know which is the case! Please don't wait 6 months, 8 months, or years till you get to the point of quitting before you seek help.

Get feedback on your website often every week, every month. get feedback on your articles. If you are really fearful or resistant, It doesn't have to be on the public thread, just approach someone you trust in the community to take a look. Be brave. Dare greatly!

Brene Brown provides us with some final words of wisdom.

'My Mantra for receiving feedback: Be brave. Listen. You can take what's helpful and leave the rest.

'My Mantra for giving feedback: Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind'.

Here is the link to the feedback thread, i hope you will all use it.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/getting-started/please-give-...

Time for me to return to my website and get some help and feedback!

Much Love

Sara