Well the plan was to get everything all polished up before launching this ship. But then in the shower this morning I had a thought. (And you probably should know that I do some of my best thinking in the shower for some reason.)
The thought was this: One of the first things you have to do if you are going to realize success is simply get started. Get into action.
My natural bent is to get everything organized and spend a lot of time figuring out all the gritty little details. I want to plan to the N-th degree. Sometimes I even suffer from analysis-paralysis. (“Say it isn’t so, Chris!”)
I can’t tell you how many great ideas I’ve had over the years that have been completely wasted energy. They never got enough momentum to actually launch and achieve escape velocity. Because they were never even started.
Successful people don’t have to have every single detail worked completely out before they get into action. Do you for a moment believe Bill Gates understood exactly how he was going to deliver his product to the Chinese market before he launched Microsoft? I seriously doubt it!
Check out what Jeff Cannon has to say on the subject from his book, Leadership Lessons of the Navy SEALS
At some point, you have to turn off the research and go. Otherwise, the plan that you’ll be working on will be written by the competition. Sure, it’s a bit of a risk: but everything is. Sure, the competition can’t iron out every wrinkle, but they know that the first to market usually wins. they know that there’s going to be a learning curve, and they’re willing to invest in it. How many software companies wait until their programs are bug-free before entering the market? Not many. Ever wonder why there are patches, fixes, and multiple versions?
Make the pitch. Grab the contract. Then have the software writers work like mad to actually develop the product in time.
Don’t wait for a sure thing. It will never come. Life is not like that. Business is not like that. The SEALs aren’t like that. Not only will a sure thing never come, but if you wait for the perfect moment, chances are you’ll be forced to react and your plan of action will be dictated by your competition. And there is nothing worse than that.
So. In the spirit of not waiting for the perfect moment, I’m going ahead and launching this blog way before I have it all worked out. We are simply getting into action. Because of that you are going to see lots of changes as I get things going on the fly.
It will be good for me and hopefully the process will be interesting for you too.
Enjoy!
