Adventures in Entrepreneurship with Jeremy Hanks

Experience is Overrated

Sunday, I took Kaitlin up American Fork canyon for our first hike this year. We hiked the Pine Hollow Trail to the junction of the Salamander Flat Trail and back. Besides the fact that she did the 3 mile round trip and 750 elevation gain hike (25% which was on snow) all by herself (making me very excited for the increase in distance we can cover this year on our Adventure Buddy trips), I learned an important lesson, and it’s something that applies 110% to entrepreneurship.

On the way down the trail, there was a little bush that had very noticeable water droplets on the leafs, left there by the skiff of a thunderstorm that came through while we were hiking. So noticeable, K and I both stopped at the same time and said, whoa, look at that. She of course wanted to take a picture, which she had been doing a lot on this trip since Amy and I gave her our old Cannon digital camera to use. It’s pretty old: 3 megapixel, and the screen on the back is barely 1.5 inches diameter. Man, was it a cutting edge, real nice camera back in the day.

Anyway, I said, good idea, let’s take a picture, but I should take this one. The reason I said that is we had to put it in Macro mode and get close and the wind was gusting and the little plant blowing all over the place. Now I don’t consider myself to be a photographer by any stretch, but I do take lots of pictures in the wild and figured for sure I could take a shot of this better than Kaitlin since she holds the camera out at arms length, squints at the tiny screen, presses the shutter button so hard it moves the camera 6 inches, and gets her (most of the time blurry) shot.

Here are the 4 pictures I took, and remember, I was putting my best, and most experienced, outdoor photography with a digital camera foot forward to try to get a shot:

Here is the picture Kaitlin took, after holding the camera out, saying, “Don’t blow the little bush wind!” and pressing the button:

Sometimes, the people who shouldn’t be able to do something–those among us that are completely inexperienced and seem to be way out of the league they’re trying to play in–are the ones that nail it.

So go do something this month that you and everyone else thinks that you can’t do since you don’t have the experience. Something you’re not qualified for. Something way out of your league. You might surprise yourself and others and find that it’s so easy a 5 yr old could do it.

BTW, it’s a pretty awesome pic, hugh? Actually, it’s not awesome, it’s beyond awesome. It’s BeeeAwesome! (K loves that movie)

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