I love reading great books with great ideas. Seth Godin’s Linchpin is a must read if you want to change your thoughts and ideas about the future.
In the book Linchpin, Seth talks about one principle that makes total sense to me, but for some reason others just do not grasp the concept.
The idea is “You must ship.”
How often do we find ourselves stuck, and frustrated because the stars have not aligned, the project is not perfect, or our life is not exactly how we want it to be?
Examples:
• We procrastinate launching a new idea because we fear rejection.
• We do not launch a new website, because the look isn’t exactly perfect.
• We do not go out and make sales; because we fill we need to learn every aspect of the product
• We spend hours and huge amounts of man power coordinating and discuss ideas, but never seem to do the actual work.
• We do not launch a video because one scene is not perfect.
• We spend hours on busy work but put off what is really important.
• We spend so much time on tweaking, updating, revising, sometimes starting over until ultimately the project is in chaos.
• We abandoned our dreams all together because one person doubts us or our dreams.
The only purpose of starting is to finish; but here’s the catch, nothing is ever finished. There are always things that can change and improvements that can be made, but this does not mean we do not ship.
“Shipping something out the door, doing it regularly, without hassle, emergency, or fear – this is a rare skill, something that makes you indispensable.”
Challenge to Shipping
“Thrashing: tweaking, updating, revising, doubts, fears, sometimes even major surgery; essential, but when to do it? Amateur: all at the end. Pro: early.
Coordination: the more people you have, the harder coordination is.
The reason: the resistance.”
Google is a great company at this. Have you noticed how they always are launching things in beta. They launch a product and then make adjustments as they go.
“Good is good enough.”
Get Shipping! This week see what you have been putting off and make it happen. Work on that new idea; launch that new marketing plan, stop tweaking.
Good luck
+Jace Vernon