Ready Or Not

Originally posted on July 18, 2013.

—

If you want to get something done, don’t give yourself enough time to finish. Keep it short and tight. Give yourself a fixed deadline.

WDS is the ultimate fixed deadline for our team, because there’s no way in the world it can be pushed back. Thousands of people book plane tickets and hotel rooms for particular dates! And then, before we even realize it, they start arriving in town, many of them a few days earlier than expected.

So there you have it—in a situation like that, you simply have to move forward.

Before I went on stage for the first time last weekend, one of the tech guys turned to me and asked, “Are you ready?”

Was I ready? Of course not—I was nervous! There were a thousand things that could have gone wrong, and there was so much more to be done. But I’ve learned from experience that the best answer to that question is: “Ready or not.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re ready, because many times you won’t be. It matters that you go out and do it.

And then when it’s over, you get ready to do it again.

***

There’s a weird feeling that comes when ending a big project.

It’s all a little depressing sometimes… at least if you let it be. What do you do when you finish?

You can rest and recover for a while. Someone else will have to write the blog post about how resting is important. I don’t doubt that it is… I’m just not good at it.

For me, when I finish something, I need something else. Better get started!

One challenge ends, a new challenge begins. You embrace the process, the pursuit, and the act of making things.

You ask yourself, what’s next?

Once you find the answer, that’s what you do.

###