What I REALLY Learned from Typing Class

When I was a freshman in high school, we had to take a mandatory class in typing. I attended an all-boys high school and virtually all of us complained bitterly every day in that class. The requirement of the class was that we learn to type at least 40 words per minute. All of it seemed so painful and horrible at the time.

Today, as I reflect on that “painful and horrible” typing class experience I realize exactly how valuable those lessons were to my success in life. Typing term papers in college; typing correspondences when I couldn’t afford an assistant; typing proposals and orders when I couldn’t afford a CSR; typing my emails and social media posts; even typing this blog.

I am sure you can think of lessons in your life that seemed painful and horrible at the time that have benefitted you eventually.

Flash forward to today. There is no doubt that many people in business are experiencing painful and seemingly horrible times. In many ways, with the current pandemic, we are all in the same class together.

Let me encourage all of us to look past whatever pain we are experiencing NOW and find the valuable lessons we are learning. Lessons like:

  • Pivoting to new products and services
  • Learning new sales approaches in a virtual world
  • Finding new opportunities these new challenges are creating
  • Making key adjustments to survive and thrive

All of these lessons and more are helping make all of us better business people and making our businesses better businesses.

About The Author

Greg Muzzillo started Proforma as an industry distributor in 1978. The company grew quickly and in the early 1980s Proforma was recognized for three consecutive years on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in North America. In the late 1980’s Proforma introduced its membership program to empower distributors to retain their business ownership and independence, and to share in sales and marketing resources, purchasing power with industry suppliers, one back office including all billing, accounting, vendor payments, cash flow, computer systems and more. Today Proforma has over 600 Members and is the $500 Million leader in the Promotional Products and Print Industry. Proforma’s record breaking success includes having 18 of its Affiliates named to Inc. Magazine’s 2020 list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies and 193 Affiliates achieving its Million/Multi-Million Dollar Club with sales up to $38 million.