Speaker George Kao argues that over-preparation commonly prevents people from making progress in their businesses. He claims there is never a point of complete readiness, so action beats endless preparation. His practical advice: (1) create and share content consistently to develop expertise and serve an audience, (2) regularly tell your network what you currently offer (monthly public mentions; email 30 top contacts every 6–12 months), and (3) collaborate with peers who have similar-sized audiences. He also recommends FocusMate for carving out focused work time and suggests small, regular website updates rather than complete overhauls.
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I've got to tell you that one of the most common things I see that is preventing people from making progress in their business is that they're always preparing. They're always getting ready to get out there. Oh, I just have to get one more training. This training, this certification. Once I get this, I will feel confident, I will feel ready to finally present my services to the world. Okay. I just got to make sure that I have my entire framework, my content framework, all the ideas that I understand are fully connected and understood, and then I will be able to make some content. Oh, I gotta wait until my kids are back in school. Now that this one is. Is tricky because I don't have kids myself, so I don't understand those of you who have kids. I know so much energy, so much, so much work. But still, I have had many clients over the years with kids or who have to take care of aging parents who are still carving out consistently. Sometime every week. If you, if you are in that situation, I recommend that you use Focus Mate. Um, I use Focus Mate many hours a day. And the busy people I know who get some things done also love Focus Mate. So because Focus Mate means you have an appointment with somebody, you do your work, they do their work. Now, you could tell your family, hey, I'm. I have an appointment right now. So anyway, even. Even if you're busy, you can carve out a few hours a week to continue making progress. And then one more thing I see people delay and keep getting ready is, oh, I got. Just got to get my website ready. I have to make sure my website is finished or I have to revamp my website before I feel ready to get out there again. And you know what? I'll tell you something interesting. I recently paid a good amount of money to a friend to help me completely revamp my website. And during the process, I realized something. I'm not going to revamp my website. My website is okay, sure, I can update the text of some pages for sure, and I do that eventually, occasionally. But the reality is you only need to update one page on your website at once. Like once a month, you spend an hour and you update one of your website pages to make it more current. That's it. But whatever you're promoting at the time, you just update that webpage and then share it. Anyway, let me get back to the main message of this video, which is, there are so many ways that I see so many of you continually preparing, preparing, preparing, getting ready to get out there. And you may have been doing that for for months or for years. And let me give you the secret is that there is no amount of preparation that you, that you can do that'll make you feel fully ready to get out there, fully ready to teach, to create content, to launch your services, your products, to launch with gusto, to really get out there. There's no amount of preparation because I've been around this entrepreneurship stuff myself and helping so many clients for 12 years, and I've seen that there's no. Even after 12 years, there is still no amount of preparation I can do to launch a product or to create some content or to make this very video. I didn't feel ready before making this video, but I. I knew. But I know now from having done so many videos that I will never feel ready to make a video. It just somehow I just have to press record, I have to press go live and start speaking. I did spend, you know, half an hour in advance to think about, you know, what I want to say, main, main three points in the video or whatever it is, but I'll never feel ready. So whether it's making a video or announcing your product or service, or writing, publishing a blog post or a book, my books, I never felt ready to finally publish unless there was a deadline, which I announced to my audience, hey, it's coming out, blah, blah, blah, you know, and I have to publish it by then because I announced it anyway. So here is the bottom line, and I'll conclude from doing this way to really make progress in your business is really about three things. Okay? Number one is to continually create and share content regarding your field. You know me, I always talk about this, but here's the thing. Knowing that you will. You will probably never understand your entire framework, your framework of ideas, how everything you understood, how everything you've lear connects to each other, and how and, and, and develops fully. I'm sorry to say it, you'll never get there. Why? Because knowledge development is an eternal journey. Every time you learn something, you realize, ooh, it's connected to yet two or three more things. Every time you learn something, oh, my God, there's even more to learn. How can knowledge end? It doesn't. So why are you trying to come up with a perfect framework that connects all your ideas? You just have to do what you know. Right now I have a framework right now, but I started my business, I started creating content before I had a framework. I just started teaching one piece at a time, and now I have a framework, but I still modify my framework like once a year or Once every couple years, I will sometimes dramatically modify them. It's okay. Do you mind that I modify my framework every now and then improve it for you based on the new things I've learned? Of course you don't mind and neither does your audience mind that you improve your framework every now and then. Right. So number one, you have to create content consistently because that's how you grow yourself. That's how you grow your understanding. That's also how you serve the world, make a benefit in others lives and also has the side benefit of helping your business. Really, I think of it that way. So one, that's how you really make progress in your business. Create, publish content consistently. Two is to continually let your network know what it is your current service or offering is. We don't remember what you offer. Even if we see you on Instagram or YouTube or whatever. We don't remember what you offer until you tell us once a month in a concerted way, hey, here's what my service is. Right now I have some room for some more clients. I love helping people with this or that. Let us know once a month through a social media post and every 6 to 12 months email each of us individually, your 30 best friends and colleagues. Email them once every 6 to 12 months individually. I just wanted you to know I've got some space in my business right now, if you know of anybody, that kind of thing. So step number two is to let your network know what your current service is. Otherwise we don't remember it even if we see you often. And number three is to try to collaborate more with your peers, the people that you know who have a similar sized audience. You have, you have 150. You have 200 Instagram followers. Great. Collaborate with someone who has between 100 to 400 Instagram followers. So similar sized audiences, between 50 to 200% of what your audience is collaborate, meaning you interview each other or share each other's content. Anyway, this video is getting a bit long, but I wanted to say that's really how you make progress. Not by keep on preparing. The most dangerous thing is to believe or to make that connection, your mind that learning, like watching videos like this is somehow making progress in your business. Not really. You might be stalling, so I'd rather you think of it this way. Learning is stalling. Doing is real learning. Learning watching videos is just stalling. You're stalling doing, announcing your services, creating content that's actually, that's real learning. Okay? So I hope this is helpful. I hope this is encouraging. For you. Get out there. We need to hear about your services and to see your content. So I wish you well and see you in the next video. Thanks for joining me.
