Why Don’t We Embrace Change in Business Plans?

It never works out like you think it will. If you look at any famous entrepreneur, you look at how they got started and where they came from to what they end up building, their plan always changes over time, and that's okay. One of my favorite stories is of Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, multi-billionaire. His first company was a magazine or newspaper called Student. He was trying to make a go of it and it wasn't working. And even though he brought on great writers and had amazing content, it just wasn't ever turning a profit. And so he wondered, "Maybe I can achieve my same goal to inspire people and help them, you know, change the world through music." And he started Virgin, which was a record label at the time. And he started it because the name Virgin came because nobody in his company had ever started a business before. They were all virgins in business. And that's where the name came from. And he started advertising his record company in his newspaper. And the record company started taking off and started becoming highly profitable. And that's what helped eventually make him a billionaire. Well, the newspaper ended up shutting down. And so your plan will always change over time, and that's okay. This is a mistake that almost sunk my first business. When I had my software company, I was 19 years old and I was convinced that there was this company that was gonna buy us. I said, "It makes total sense. This is where the industry is going. This company is the number one player in the industry. They're gonna wanna buy us. There's so many synergies between what we can do together." And I spent an entire summer working on a proposal, planning it out, you know, getting all the details perfect, just right. And it turns out when we actually spoke to them, they didn't care. They didn't care so much. And I spent all that time planning and it didn't work out. We then quickly realized that one of their competitors, a number 4 player in the industry, was interested. But we weren't ready to go out and close that deal because we spent so much time working on this first company. And we still ended up making it far. It was between us and our biggest competitor, which was an international company that was publicly listed, and we lost to them. And that deal was $40 million. I lost a $40 million deal, you know, when I was 19, 20, 21 years old, in that area. $40 million deal I lost because I was too busy planning down the wrong path. And planning definitely has a purpose, okay? You're not just running off in some crazy direction and taking action, but you can't just plan. You can't just be out there writing things down. You've got to actually go and talk to people. And put your plan in motion and realize that your plan is going to change. Your plan will change, just like Richard Branson's plan changed, just like my plan changed, just like every famous entrepreneur you could think of, their plan changed, and that's okay. So don't be so worried about making the perfect plan before you get started, because that perfect plan doesn't exist. It's going to change as soon as you start running. But don't let that fear hold you back from starting, because you could be sitting at your job writing the perfect business plan only to see somebody else make millions off of your idea because you didn't have the courage to take action on it. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video, thumbs up below. Let me know how you took action on your plan. Leave it in the comments below, or if you have a question, leave it below as well. And click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.