How NOT To Succeed… At ANYTHING.

There is this one type of person in the world which which I continually clash. You might be one of them…

They are a valuable group of people… intelligent, thinking, analytically minded, problem solving people, capable of doing so many complex things with such precision that it would scare you.

But at the same time, I frequently want to take these people and strangle the last breath of air out of their stupid little heads.

I’m talking about that rare breed of humans who are obsessively focused on minute details…

For all their skills and mental ability… if you leave one of these people on their own, in a business/entrepreneurial capacity, they will get NOTHING done. They have a thousand questions, they move at a snail’s pace on purpose, they won’t execute, they will hesitate until everything’s perfect and by that time, it will be too late…

And dealing with these people frustrates me to death.

The reason is that nothing’s ever going to be perfect, there will always be mistakes, you will rarely EVER get it right the first time, but the only way you can move forward is just putting it out there! The only way you can know whether something works, how well it works, and get the feedback you need to make things more perfect, is to put it out there and do it imperfectly the first time, and let the feedback tell you HOW imperfect it is and how it needs to be done differently.

Sitting there thinking it through in all the detail in the world is worth nothing if it’s never getting put out there. I know you think you’re safeguarding against failure, but you’re not… you’re locking in failure because of your fear of it.

I’m growing convinced that it’s one of the worst qualities an entrepreneur can have at the start up phase, particularly if it’s just that person in the business.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not impossible for you to succeed, you just need to be around at least one other person who is what Eben Pagan calls, a “driver”. You need to be around someone who doesn’t care about detail, someone who would rather see a product or an idea, or a website out there making mistakes, than perfect and sitting on the shelf. In fact, when you are part of the right team, you’ll probably be the most valuable part of that team. No one will think through things like you, no one will anticipate the problems like you, no one will refine a system or a process like you.

So if you’re one of these people, and you want to make some money in your own business, you know what to do. If you’re not one of these people and you get frustrated by them like I do, remember their value and try to bear with their annoying attention to detail for the sake of their brilliance and the invaluable contribution they can make to your business.