It’s time to step up to the plate.
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The difference between a talker, a doer, and a bullshitter is merely a matter of degree. Bullshitters rarely follow through on their schemes and scams and master plans. My guess is that less than one in ten see the light of day. Talkers are much better at following through on their bright ideas. Maybe one in three bear fruit. Doers are better still, but, in my experience, only marginally so. Half of what they talk about actually happens.
Talkers, doers, and bullshitters are hard to tell apart precisely because they’re all members of the same ambitious species. Their true opposite, type-wise, is the lackluster dullard, who takes no risks, and dreams no dreams.
It’s good to remember that Babe Ruth, the greatest player in baseball history, was happy to hit but one out of every three balls; Ty Cobb, baseball’s record-holder, had a career batting average of .366 (meaning he missed the ball at least half the time). It’s also good to remember that most successful entrepreneurs have gone bankrupt at least once in the past (my friend Jaffer Ali is a case in point).
It’s easy to be overly judgmental of failure when you’re a dullard who’s never stepped up to the plate. Those who’ve actually tried to make things happen in the world are, in my experience, far more understanding.
—John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2016)
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This article originally appeared on Committing Sociology
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