It Is A Matter Of Belief

I use to drive a van as a locksmith. Now until I'm 60, I work on the wholesale side of locks and door hardware. Back when I was in the shop, there was an instance where one of the new locksmiths in the shop tried to make a key to a 1978 Chevy trunk lock.

The shop that day was busy and after about 20 minutes the new guy came in and said I've got a key made to it. The boss said, "But Charles, I didn't see you take the lock out of the trunk to bring it inside to disassemble it to made the key". Charles looked at him and said, "I impressioned it.". Impression in the lock world means you take a blank key clamped to a vise grip and a file and wiggle it in the lock to find impressions made on the key. You then file the places where the impressions are and repeat until you make a key to the car.

There were three other servicemen in the shop and we just looked at each other. You see, you're not suppose to be able to impression a key to a sidebar lock like that particular car had.

After Charles made a good key back to factory code and went outside to verify it was the correct key, I asked the boss, "How did Charles who was a novice, impression a key to that lock"? He looked at me and said, "No one told him he couldn't".

This business is just like the above example. If you think you can do something... you can. And if you've convinced yourself that you can't... you can't.

If you have a fixed mindset, meaning that what you believe cannot be changed, you'll need to change it to a growth mindset to be successful in this business.

If you run across someone who says yes I can do that. Then you run across someone else who says there's no way I can do that. Guess what? They are both right.