“Do” versus “Try” – Impacting Mentality and Success

Recently, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera shared one of his major tenets for becoming successful at this craft.

“The word “try” cannot be in our vocabulary. When we try at something we are giving ourselves an excuse to fail or fall short.”

At QED National, we have a similar philosophy championed by our President and Founder Colleen Molter.

“You’re either doing something or you’re going to do something. There’s no ‘trying’ involved,” she often says.

This may appear to be a small and inconsequential sentiment, but it’s not. Fostering a “try” mentality allows excuses to proliferate and removes effectiveness from the designated task. This can also remove accountability from completing tasks because “trying” allows for the potential of not completing your task or assignment, as long as you vaguely “tried”. This moves the goal post from concrete results into abstract sentiment. But that’s not how business works, whether your business is information technology professional services or striking out opponents to win games.

At QED National we pride ourselves on our work—providing high quality services to valued clients, recruiting and retaining exceptional technical consultants, and partnering with technology product companies to deliver top tier solutions. As a small, information technology and Women-owned Owned Business Enterprise (“WBE”), QED National has been competitive for over 27 years in a space dominated by large, multinational corporations. An integral reason behind QED National’s success is adopting a doer mentality instead of try.

“My children have always heard this from me that instead of trying you must DO IT,” Rivera said, “This is the way that I have always lived and it has led me to success.”