Dear Entrepreneur,
While growing up, when things didn’t work out my way, my mother would say to me, “Chidi, it has to get ugly before it gets pretty”, and I never clearly understood her until I had a car accident in 2016. I came out with a few injuries, but the left side of my car was a wreck.
I took it to the auto workshop to have it fixed, and the workshop owner said to me, “We need to respray this car. We’ll do a lot of bodywork and it will need repainting.” I said, “Go ahead!” Then he offered the option to retain the original pencil grey color of the car or use the opportunity to change the entire color.
“I’ve always wanted a white car. Change it. I’ll go for white,” I replied without an afterthought and walked away. Three days later, I came back to see the progress, and mehn, my car was in a mess. Everything was taken apart. I could barely recognize it. So I said to the engineer, “Is all this necessary? Why dismember the car this way?” And he responded, “We are changing the entire color, so we need to.” Then he added, “It has to get ugly before it gets pretty.” And he was correct, a week later, it was perfect.
I don’t know what you’re going through, but no matter how tough it is, I’m urging you to push on, because everything is about to get pretty. You’re just in the temporary ugly phase.
With love,
Chidi