Hiding behind “Hard”
The theme of “things being hard” keeps coming up in my conversations with entrepreneurial clients and prospects. What if keeping things hard is really about ego, more important than succeeding?
A Pattern Of Making Things Hard
I grew up in the era of Nintendo. That shoebox-sized grey box, with the flap lid you’d open to shove the cartridge in, that held the game. Many of the games had difficulty settings. My brother would put the game on easy so he could win. I would put the game on hard so it was more of a challenge. He won more and probably enjoyed playing more. I rarely won but I got enjoyment from the challenge vs. winning.
I’m still wired like that today. I like challenges. I create challenges for myself. I like to make things harder than they need to be. And man, have I seen that come up time and time again in recent conversations with others. What if taking the hard route was a way to cover up self-doubt? I mean, if it’s hard, then people can’t blame you, right?
What would it say about you if you could let things be easy and enjoy winning, like my brother did?
Doing Hard Is Making Life More Exciting
If you know me, you know I’m a passionate, late-learning, recreational tennis player. And I fell in love with the game and singles in particular. If you knew my game, you’d know it’s scrappy and athletic. My tennis skills, especially in the beginning, weren’t super sharp, so winning was more about hustle and playing aggressively. If I got into a rally, I was pretty sure I’d eventually lose. So, about the 3rd shot in the rally, I’d either do a drop shot, go for a winner, or try to hit a deep ball to a corner and follow it in for a volley put-away. It’s an exciting, but risky way to play. But what it really was covering up was that I didn’t have the skill to win, so I relied on brashness. Over time, if I wanted to enjoy the game more, I would need to make it easier to win. I would need to develop, as Napoleon Dynamite’s would say, skills.
One Way to Make Life Easier
One way to make life easier is to hire a Pro. A pro is an expert. A pro has experience. It’s easy for a pro to do his or her thing—or at least they make it look easy.
For tennis (and other games of skill), the game is better played with skill. To acquire skill, I could watch YouTube and go practice. I could try things out in matches, and maybe over the years, with trial and error, I might improve. That’s the hard way. That’s the self-made person, the “I’ve never hired a coach” self-developed athlete. And some people can do this. Most can’t. Most of us need help; we need to hire a Pro.
And that’s where I found myself: I could hire a Pro who knew how to play tennis. I could hire a Pro who could tell me what I was doing wrong. And by hiring that Pro, I could get better, faster, and enjoy the game all that much more.
And that’s what I’ve done. After watching myself play a match on video, it showed me how horrible my skills really were, so I hired a Pro and basically said, “It’s time.” It’s time I took the shortcut and stopped taking the hard route of being self-taught; it was time I learned some skills and stopped butchering the game.
A Question Worth Sitting With
What are you making hard in your business that you could make easy?
Where might things be hard not because they need to be, but because that hardness is protecting something—pride, identity, ego, or the image of being self-made? That familiar wiring that says things should be as challenging as possible in order to count.
What might change if things were allowed to get easier? Not as a form of “cheating,” but as an act of you admitting you need help and choosing to play the game to win, not to just be hard?
Where might you be hiding behind “hard,” when what you really want is to move forward and win?
There are so many shortcuts and “easy-buttons” we could press if we were willing to pay for a Pro to help us.
But does it make us less if we hire someone to help us? Does it make us less if we don’t take the hard road? We tell ourselves, if we make it hard, then it will be worth it. If we make it hard, then we can’t be blamed if we fail.
What if there’s an option to make it easy, be ourselves, and succeed? Would you do it?
My Unlock
Take it from me, I know the story on both sides. And looking back, man, I wish I had taken the shortcut and hired more Pros along the way.
One thing I did do right was I hired a Pro, an executive coach, in 2015. It changed my life. It was the great unlock. And what she taught me was not what I expected. It wasn’t tactics or techniques or secret strategies or how to market or sell…she taught me about me. And once I understood myself better and owned what it meant to be me, I became a better leader and person, which…guess what?
It made things easier by being me.
The Easy Challenge
For 2026, I challenge you to make one big, important thing easy. I challenge you to hit the easy button to be yourself and go after what it is you really want—and what people really want is to express themselves, for people to see them, and succeed in what they set out to do.
So hire a Pro. I don’t care what it’s about, but if everyone on this newsletter list went and hired a pro, and made whatever they care about EASY, hundreds of lives would be improved. And the trickle effect would be amazing—the impact on your team at work, your family, and your friends would be amazing.
We’re all better when YOU are better.
In 2026, will you choose to succeed, will you choose easy?
-Adam