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will, though, and thats all we need. Ill be out there, too. Youll probably find me
facedown in failure. Id appreciate a hand.
The next section will provide 10 powerful and mostly overlooked truths about the
nature of action.
The final section will provide two specific practices that will force you into creating a
habit of taking action.
Your next action? Continue reading.
to complete a handful. Every test flight taught lessons the one who failed fastest
gathered the most information.
This philosophy of failing fast has spread through Silicon Valley and beyond thanks
to Eric Ries work The Lean Startup. We can imagine the Wright Bros. writing this
passage from Ries book:
Ive come to believe that learning is the essential unit of progress for startups.
The eort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want can
be eliminated. I call this validated learning because it is always demonstrated by
positive improvements in the startups core metrics.
Technology has reached a point where building is often cheaper than planning. We
can build the thing and know the answer before we can plan for all the possibilities
and determine how it might work. Ries writes:
The question is not Can this product be built? In the modern economy, almost
any product that can be imagined can be built. The more pertinent questions are
Should this product be built? and Can we build a sustainable business around
this set of products and services?
These are questions that cannot be answered in the abstract they must be tested in
the physical world.
The key is to make the tests cheap and quickly make small improvements.
This applies to everything. Especially your life.
Planning has paralyzed me time and again. I was taught to always have a plan before
taking action.
That led to a deep depression. I didnt know what career I wanted to dedicate my life
to and so I did nothing. I didnt know what girl I wanted to marry and so I didnt give
any a real chance. I didnt know what fitness plan was the best and so I stayed out of
the gym.
Now I do the opposite.
I dont let myself plan or research until Ive taken action.
Ive tried a ton of careers and found which I hate and which I love. Ive let myself love
the imperfect girl and have the best relationship Ive ever had. Im not allowed to
read anything about fitness until Ive worked out that day. I dont let myself learn
about a new diet until Ive stopped eating sugar.
Most of the time, planning is procrastination. Its based on theory. Its going to be
wrong.
Plans are useless without action.
Thats why Step 1 is to take action based on what you already know. Then improve bit
by bit. Then begin forming a plan.
3. Inaction is Scarier
The pain of action is acute. Its right in our face.
Inaction tempts us because its slow.
We dont consider refusing to choose to be a choice. We think were safe if we dont
expose ourselves to failure. We dont appreciate the consequences of inaction
because they are slow, chronic, and less obvious. Thats what makes them worse.
You dont get to escape pain.
The pain that comes with action is acute, gives you scars, and makes you grow.
The pain that comes from inaction is low-grade, makes you soft, and makes you
decay.
Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the
tough times start. Courage is what you earn when youve been through the tough
times and you discover they arent so tough after all. -Malcolm Gladwell, David
and Goliath
My business partner and I didnt charge for anything for more than a year. We gave
out some of the best content online and never asked for anything in return.
We didnt believe that what we had was worth anything.
Intellectually we knew that we deserved to be paid. Something was holding us back,
though.
Finally we put down a date. We scheduled a webinar and more than a thousand
people showed up.
The webinar was a technical disaster. We started late, laptops went out, our business
password was exposed to hundreds of people, and we didnt know how to run the
software. Everything went wrong that could have.
We oered our course for $497 a price we thought was too high.
It turns out it was too low. We sold more courses than we ever thought we would
and, in the process, made more money in a single night than we did in the previous
year.
Forcing ourselves into a corner made us ballsier than we thought we could be.
Practicing Action
Here we will explore (briefly!) two specific ways you can train yourself to take more
action.
A possible solution is to reward yourself for following your system rather than
achieving a specific outcome. Select a system you know will lead to success and
follow it.
Eating right vs. losing 20 pounds. Building a business vs. achieving financial
independence. Going on dates vs. having a successful relationship. The first are
systems, the second are goals.
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, champions this idea in How to Fail at Almost
Everything and Still Win Big:
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best,
and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people
succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what
they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of
discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time
they apply their system. Thats a big dierence in terms of maintaining your
personal energy in the right direction.
When I set a goal of 210 pounds and 13% body fat I stopped going to the gym and
began eating stupid amounts of ice cream. When I decided on the system of work
out every day I began a real path to fitness success.
Thats the easy step. The next is the real challenge.
TV youll have to go get batteries for the remote. This is a barrier to TV that will
save your willpower pool from draining as you stare down the remote thinking
about all the Game of Thrones and Mad Men youre missing.
This may be the hardest thing you do all year. The benefits may not be obvious on
Day 2. By Day 6 theyll be undeniable.
Your focus will turn to production instead of consumption. You will become a giver
instead of a taker. You will see your addiction to novelty and useless information
plainly.
Remember that this is only a week and not a suggestion for a lifestyle. I love books. I
love learning new things. I consume information like crazy. And its valuable! Input
Deprivation Week is about creating a better relationship with information, not denying
its importance.
Like a girlfriend that you didnt fully appreciate until she was gone, your
relationship to information will be forever changed. You will appreciate quality
information and be more able to ignore the rest. You wont be an addict to useless
information.
If you need any support or have any questions, comment below or even email me
(info below).
Godspeed
This was a long post on something that is actually quite simple.
I wanted you to know Action deeply so that you have the confidence to push when
others dont. This isnt comprehensive, but it is a great place to push o.
Remember:
1. Failing can be progress if you use it.
2. The wisdom you receive from action often remains invisible.
3. Judge yourself based on the actions you take not their outcomes.
I hope this is the last thing you read for a week.
_____________________________________
Kyle kick-starts entrepreneurs at StartupBros.com and is oering this free guide of
necessary entrepreneurial epiphanies to you. Feel freer than free to contact Kyle
anywhere on the web. Even his inbox: kyle at StartupBros dot com.