From inspiration to implementation, people who take action now succeed much more than people who postpone taking action.
We all have a story where we hesitated and lost, and sometimes lost big. Here’s mine.
Snoozers Are Losers
I used to do a lot of caving. I got pretty good at it. My ambition was large, larger than my capacity to achieve. Once, back in 1983, I was visiting some friends who were caving near Huautla de Jimenez in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was winter and I was fleeing an Austin cold snap, and recovering from flu. Now, the caves near Huautla are deep, really deep… but not the deepest… the discussion went more or less like this:
Dave: “So, where are there other areas that have deep caves?”
Gerald: “Look over there” (He points to the south) “You can see the mountains over there are higher, and it’s all cave country.”
Dave: “How far away is it?” (What a wuss I was, already looking for excuses!)
Gerald: “You have to go back down the mountain from Huautla, than back up further down the Tehuacan Valley. You should go over there.”
Dave: “I guess so…”
And that was the end of that… for me. A total failure to take action!
Two years later, some adventurous cavers from Los Angeles did walk up there… and found Cueva Cheve, potentially the deepest cave in the world!
That Was Then, This Is Now.
This morning (January 23, 2009), I had an idea: post 1 minute action items to my twitter feed, little tasks that everyone needs to do but procrastinates away. 30 minutes later, I launched 1-minute-do-it-now.com.
I have absolutely no idea how much traction 1-minute-do-it-now will get, nor how long I will be interested in pursuing it, but being able to move quickly from inspiration to implementation allows me to “fail faster” in the worst case. And that’s a good thing!
Fast Implementation a Critical Factor
In his Altitude marketing course, Eben Pagan notes that most successful entrepreneurs share an ability to rapidly execute, to take an idea from inspiration to implementation very quickly. This can be thought of as a “Speed of Implementation” strategy. Since strategy is useless without tactics, here are some tactics:
- If you don’t have a business yet, implementing better marketing or more efficient fulfillment doesn’t really apply. What you can do instead is “take the next step.” If you can’t implement the exact idea you have, implement something that takes you in the appropriate direction. For example, you can’t change the copy in your newsletters if you aren’t sending newsletters. So purchase an account from aweber.com and teach yourself to write newsletters.
Tactical principle: Take the next step (Inspiration from Dan Simmon’s fantastic Hyperion novels).
- For some things, for example the “business instrumentation dashboard” advocated by Eben may not fit your business directly. You may not need daily balances because you take in revenue 1-2 times per month. Expenses the same way. However, just implement the dashboard exactly like the example and use it until you can figure out something a little more relevant.
Tactical principle: Do it anyway.
- A personal example: my motivation for purchasing Eben’s product was to learn more about creating and operating a internet-oriented business. At the time, I was really busy doing something else for a client as part of my consulting business. However, the marketing principles from one business venture can be modified to apply to another.
Tactical principle: Move in a parallel direction.
Adopting a “speed of implementation” strategy with the above tactics allows building a general infrastructure as you go. Very likely, whatever the original idea was, may never actually be implemented. And that’s fine. Because I am anticipating a point where I have enough infrastructure built that implementing a good idea requires no more than an evening’s work.
Some links
- John Furst provides more tactics for fast implementation:
- You don’t have the skills to implement it?
Find someone who has. - You don’t have the money?
Improve something you’re already doing. Little improvements add up to some respectable results.
- You don’t have the time?
Learn more effective time management.
- You don’t have the skills to implement it?
- Cheryl Clausen provides unique perspective on speed of implementation:
The best time to take action on something that will move you closer to success is always now.
- Erin Blaskie credits Eben in this post on her secrets to success.
And here is Eben’s speed of implementation video, hosted at youtube:
What about you?
Do you have a horror story to share? A story that wasn’t a story because you failed to take action now? Share it and let’s all learn!
What about success? What are your secrets to fast implementation?
[Published: Mar 27, 2008]
[Updated: Jan 23, 2009]
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You are on spot.
Thanks for using my humble blog post as a reference. Very much appreciated.
Cheers.
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