Saturday, September 20, 2008

Trying and doing

Recently I've been interacting with a bunch of people who keep telling me they are trying to get something done. They keep on trying and trying but the thing never gets done. When I talk to these folks I hear all sorts of reasons, but mainly they are just trying.

It seems like TRYING IS JUST NOT DOING IN PROGRESS.

Is trying enough? This is a tough question, because how can we tell our children "well honey just do your best" (ie try really, really hard) "and that will be good enough for me." But it is not good enough for everyone else. No one on the outside world cares that you tried. Even tried really hard.

Trying to get into an Ivy League school doesn't mean anything. There are a whole truckload of kids who tried to get good grades, tried to do well on their SATs, tried to do extra activities, etc. But Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the rest of the top tier colleges don't care. In fact they won't even look at your application if you just tried. You better have DONE. GOTTEN good grades, PERFORMED well on the SAT, LEAD really amazing extra activities, because they are only interested in people to tried and did ... succeeded.

The market doesn't care about your trying. You can try to be the best employee, lover, spouse, parent, product, team, organization. People external to you (ie the market) don't care. They will go to where the most value is (see my value post).

It's tough to be the best in the world (see Seth Godin's "The Dip" book), but everything else is just an excuse and doesn't matter. Good conversation for coffee, but won't make a difference in the final analysis.

So how do YOU stop trying and start doing?

See you on the wire

- Steven

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