Greg Faxon argues beginners should imitate proven approaches before innovating. Innovating too early relies on untested intuition and ego. Once you build skill and data through imitation, you can responsibly innovate.
Going, everyone, Greg faxson here from Gregfaxon.com today I want to talk about why sometimes when you start in a new domain, when you start a new business, when you start a new health goal, when you start a new relationship, you fail, and why it's really hard to get momentum in those beginning phases. And also going to talk about how you can expedite the process of learning something new, of achieving a new goal. And I want to take us back to the title of this presentation, which is Imitate, then innovate. What does that mean, imitate, then innovate? Well, a lot of people, when they start something new, when they get into a new domain where they don't really know what they don't know yet, they try to innovate. They try to create something new. So, for example, in my domain, in my industry, which is coaching, a lot of new coaches will come in and try to innovate in terms of new methods for getting clients, and they'll try to reinvent the wheel. That's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea because we already know a lot of things that work for getting clients. And what you really need to do is find someone who knows and then imitate. And sometimes our ego doesn't want us to imitate successful approaches because we're like, oh, well, we know better. We're probably a little bit different. Why don't I try to figure this out myself? That's a really big mistake. When you're starting out with something, when you're starting out with a business or with a new goal, because if you try to innovate right away, you're innovating based on an intuition that hasn't been honed. You're imitating based on not a lot of data about what works and what doesn't. It's the masters who spend a lot of time apprenticing, figuring out what works, doing stuff by the book that then get to innovate. So we need to flip this model. Instead of innovating first, when you start a business, when you start a new goal, I want you to imitate first. I want you to put aside your ego just for a little bit, maybe the first year or two, figure out what works, figure out what's proven, invest in the support you need around it and just follow the system. Don't try to innovate, don't try to reinvent the wheel, don't invent a whole new system right away. You don't really know what you're doing. Then once you know the ropes. Once you've been successful at all already, that's when you can break some new ground and start to innovate. Think about anyone who's innovated successfully. Did they just stumble upon something brand new to the area? No, they were doing something proven. So for example, Nike has a lot of innovation now. They're on the forefront of a lot of different running sneakers, etc. When Nike started, it was just a running coach and he got used to all these different sneakers that already existed and he started copying them. He tried to make them a little bit better, but he didn't try to reinvent what a shoe was right from the get go. Right. So it's okay to make little tweaks to make it personal to you, but make sure that you're imitating first. When you don't have any real data about what's going on, then you innovate. And that requires putting your ego aside, emptying your cup, you know, knowing that you don't have it all figured out yet and kind of having a beginner's mind as they talk about like in Zen, right? Having a beginner's mind when you approach something because you really are a beginner and imitating then innovating. As a side note, in specifically the coaching realm, I want to add in, there's really two types of coaching engagements that I do and I found that one's better for beginners, one's better for advanced. This isn't a pitch. I'm just trying to give you another example. For people who are starting off in a new business, typically they're tempted to innovate, like for reasons we just talked about, but really they need to imitate. And that's when a kind of a step by step training course can be really helpful because people don't have the confidence yet to innovate later on. When someone's an advanced business owner, they've been in business 10 years, they're a CEO. That's when sometimes a less structured engagement, a one on one engagement is better. The person doesn't really need the proven framework as much because they already have a sense of that and it's time for them to innovate, figure out how to do things their own way. And so whether you're considering coaching or you're a coach and figuring out how do I best work with people? Think about how early on in the process of development are they? If they're super early on, they're probably going to be looking for some things to imitate. They're not going to necessarily want to figure out the answers themselves, and it may not be a good idea for them to do that. That's for later on, right at the beginning, make sure you're giving people roadmaps, things that they can imitate, adapt to themselves, but fundamentally things that they can really steal from you and copy what works. And then as people get more advanced, as they get more confident, then encourage people to innovate. That's all for today, guys. Let me know if you have any questions. I'll be happy to answer one in a future Facebook Live. Just comment under this video. Love you all. We'll talk soon.
