Inspiration Only Goes So Far

Being a successful entrepreneur isn’t like other jobs. You have to fuse action, analysis, and inspiration. If you look at any failed entrepreneurs you might know, you could probably agree with this statement: most failed businesses have, at the core, one person who mistakenly thinks they’ve moved past the “working” stage and into the “ideas” stage.

There is no “ideas” stage.

Bill Gates, once the most powerful man in the world, announced early this decade that he wanted to become Microsoft’s ideas guy. He entrusted the various hats he’d been wearing since the 1980s to people he trusted. He no longer wanted to be the chief grunt, the head decider, the chairman of the board, the spokesman, and so on. He wanted to look at Microsoft from a distance, compare it to that grandiose ethereal stuff we call “the marketplace,” and remain solely in charge of plotting the course ahead.

Bill Gates, once the most powerful man in the world, couldn’t even get what he wanted from his own corporate superpower – at least, not instantly. Years later, he’s certainly the chief software architect, but he’s also still a spokesman, and I’ll bet head man Steve Ballmer still asks his old boss about a dozen tough questions a week.

You’re not the most powerful man in the world. Even if you were, you still couldn’t have total control over even your own business, operating purely from an “ideas” perspective. Being the wisest pontiff, expecting your words to rub off on paid disciples, imagining they will leave you alone, go forth, and carry out your work? It’s a fantasy.

You have to fuse hard work with big ideas. You have to see inspiration correctly. It’s not your whole job, and it’s not an optional luxury. It’s just one part of your unique workload as an entrepreneur, one that you have to attend to on a regular basis, and not allow to become an overrunning cost.

Go, Go, Go

There’s a reason that everybody says doubt is the biggest killer of entrepreneurs. That reason is simple: just about any reasonable decision you could make, is going to work out fine. Sure, there could always have been a better decision, and you do need to remember to be decisive instead of rash. But caveats amounting to “cover your bases” aside, there are three main things to keep in mind when making minor decisions throughout your work day:

1. Go.
2. Go.
3. Go.

Entrepreneurs do business in bullet time. Bullet time is that effect in action movies where the camera slows down to watch a bullet cutting spiral paths in the air, so that the hero can make their superhuman effort to dodge that bullet. The business version of this is that every second, you’re spending money. At the most basic level, you pay your own paycheck, and every second you’re getting hungrier, the lights and computers are on, et cetera. Also, new opportunities arise every day, and clearing your work load is critical to positioning yourself for those challenges. Go, go, go.

Sometimes, parts of your workload can seem only vaguely related to making money. There are only two questions: is it necessary? Is it up next to do? Don’t ask yourself if the time could be better spent. The time you spend asking yourself could be better spent saying “just do it, go go go!” You’ll be done before you know it, if you throw yourself in at full stroke.

Again – we’re not saying to be rash! But ignore false, time-wasting questions. When you’re operating in bullet time, you have to presume that you’ll know what to do when the chips are on the table. If you can’t do that, you won’t succeed, so do it right now. Find something you know will benefit your future, and go go go!