Unlock Action Now | Escape Perfectionism's Trap with Business Insights

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Start Now. Over to you, Jocko Willink.

People want to know how to stop the laziness and they want to know how to stop the procrastination. You know, they have some idea in their head, you know, some kind of a vision of what they want to do, but they don't know where to start. They don't know where to start it, you know. They don't know where to start. And so they say, hey, where do I start? And when's the best time to start? And I have a very simple answer for that. Here and now. That's it. You want to improve? You want to get better? You want to get on a workout program or a clean diet? You want to start a business? You want to write a book or make a movie or build a house or a computer or put together some mobile application? Where do you start? You start right here. And when do you start? You start right now. You initiate the action aggressively. You go, because the idea isn't going to execute itself, and the book isn't going to write itself, and the weights out in the gym, they're not going to move themselves. Themselves. You have to do it, and you have to do it now. And that means you gotta stop thinking about it and stop dreaming about it and stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it. Just start doing it. Take that first step. And make it happen. Get after it. And get after it here and now.

There is no perfect first step. There is no perfect plan. There is no perfect time to get started. A lot of people are so held up on finding what the perfect first thing is to do that they do nothing. And that's the ultimate failure. The ultimate failure is doing nothing and just sitting on this idea and never taking any kind of action for it because you're worried about making a misstep. You're worried about making a mistake. You're worried that it's not perfect. Your perfectionism is killing you. It's preventing you from doing amazing things in your life and with a business. You take any step. You have a vision. Here's what I want to accomplish. Here's my goal. I want to write a book. I want to start a company. I want to— whatever it is. Whatever first step comes to mind, go out and do that. And then adjust. Adjust, adjust. Adjust. You can have the best plan in the world, right? And I'm all for business planning. It's not just, I'm just going to throw an idea out there and see what happens, right? You can plan, you can model success, you can look at what has worked for people, but you have to go out and do it because the best plan is obsolete as soon as you start executing on it. And this is what almost killed my first business. This is how I learned the lesson because I was that guy. I was the perfectionist. I didn't want to do anything still had it all figured out, and you only later realize that what you think you figured out, you have no idea what you're talking about because you haven't gone out and done anything yet. I lost a $40 million deal in my first company. I was making $300 a month, sucking in my company, turned it around, started making an income, and had an opportunity to sell my business for $40 million, and I lost it to my biggest competitor. Because I had to have the perfect plan, because I spent an entire summer working on the perfect plan, and I was too late to the table. I was looking the wrong way. What made great sense on paper wasn't actually what was going to happen in the market, and I lost a $40 million deal because of it. That kills. That sucks. I was 22 years old. It's important to plan. What you need to do. And don't get so hung up on having the perfect step. Don't worry what the first step is. People write in and say, what's my first? It doesn't matter. Something. Do something and then do something again tomorrow and do something again the next day. And every day you get a little bit better. Start taking massive action. That's how you're going to get that idea out of your head finally and out into the world so you can start reaping the benefits and having a big impact. Impact on this world like you are meant to do. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what are you afraid to start now that you're going to as a result of watching this video? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Onyemar Iriaka. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. Really, really, really means a lot to me, and hope you're enjoying the read. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.

I love when, my assistant's got a great thing now in this. Once in every 4 months, somebody sends an email saying, I've got a huge startup that I want you to invest in. "but you've gotta sign this NDA." Right? Which literally every time gets an email back that says, "Fuck you." Right? And the reason is, I'm a humongous believer that ideas are shit, and that execution's the game. Right? We've all got ideas. Everybody's got ideas. Do you know how many fucking ideas we all have here? We could probably sit here for the next 2 hours, draw them all out, record 'em, and predict the next 78 great startups over the next 9 years. End. So I think the thing that is another theme in entrepreneurship is there is way too much fodder brought to the idea. Uber was Magic Cab 3 years earlier. Uber is not an idea.

Uber existed.

It was called Magic Cab. But the guys that executed it sucked. So they lost. So I think, you know, if there's any level of romance left in this room about your idea, I'd like to suffocate it. Because I think the actual situation is what you actually do with it.

As a musician, you want to be great. Like, you want to be good. And you sort of set these funny expectations for yourself, you know? One of the funniest things that Fogerty ever said to me, he was like, "Yeah, I was— I tried to learn— I was learning to play the drums, but I realized that I would never be as good as John Bonham from Led Zeppelin, so I stopped." And I'm like, you're— who is as good as John? But nobody. Like, what the fuck? How could you do that? So like, there should be no right or wrong, you know? You should just be cool with what you do and how you sound. Like, I'm— it's one of the things that I have a problem with, like a lot of those song contest shows on TV. Not only because, you know, whatever, it's corporate cheese or whatever the fuck. But I have a problem with like if my kid walked up on stage and sang her heart out as best as she could and Jennifer Lopez said like, "No, sorry, that's not good enough." I'd be like— I would be so pissed, you know? 'Cause that's not how it works. You know, you should be— you should go to a yard sale and buy a guitar and then go find a friend and get into your garage and just suck. That'd be awful. And then write some songs and become the biggest band in the world. Yeah, because that's how it's— that's how it works. I mean, it works other ways too, I'm sure, but I mean, as a young musician, you know, First of all, you're not gonna make a living doing it. Like, accept that. Realize that. Because then if you do, you're fucking stoked. The reward of playing music— playing music should be the reward of playing music. Like, that's what you kind of get. Like, when I was a little kid, when I was playing punk rock music as a teenager, like, there was never any career opportunity because we play punk rock music. Nobody wanted to buy that, but we loved to do it. It was so much fun. And if you start from a place like that, that you just love to create, and you just love to play music, and you can't stop thinking about it, and you do it every day, and you do it by yourself, or you do it with your friends, and that's enough for you to survive the rest of your life, that's great. And then, once you start getting good, You start playing for people. And once you start playing for people, if you're good, then those people will tell other people, "That girl's really fucking good." So then all of a sudden you're playing to all these different people. And that to me is the most important thing. When it's you on stage and people are seeing— When people see another person doing that, it's really inspiring. Like, it's cool to see a human being Jamming, that's great.

I was a very headstrong young person. And by 1983 or '84, had started my own publishing company to publish my own books, realizing that no one else will publish me. And I was right about that. And so my first book, I saved my food money from Black Flag, a little here, little there. And I saved enough to make a fold and staple book. I couldn't type, so I hand wrote out the things and I made a dummy that I could offset print, fold, and staple. And I sold them for $2, mainly gave them away, but I sold enough and they blew out. 500 just went. And then I took that money to make another print run of that, and from that money I made my first paperback. And 30 3 years later, that's a fully staffed company with books in translation and hardcover editions and the whole, you know, the whole 9 yards. But it started with, I'm gonna do my thing. I'll be City Lights Jr. without the talent. And that's, I did that at the same time I was doing my first spoken word gigs. And why did I have the gumption and the audacity to start my own book company? Because I come from punk rock. I come from watching Ian Mackay invent Discord Records on his mom's kitchen table. I come from folding and gluing picture sleeves together. Black Flag had their own label. Of course you do it yourself. You want to make a book? Sit down and write it. Then go to the printing place. Where's a printer? Get in the phone book and find a printer. We make records, make some books. It was— you just do it. It's like you don't even think about it, you just do it. And I'm sure that writing is just awful, but I did it. And without even hesitation, I'm making my own book companies. Stop me, I dare you. I never thought about it twice, just because DIY, man. Like, let your voice be heard.