Episode 119 - More Horses?

The Thursday Thesis - 4/10/2018

My friend gushed about her upcoming podcast, about how awesome it was going to be, how good her guests were going to be, how crisp and clean her audio was going to be, and  once she’d got that nailed-down...

Spot the pattern?

This lovely lady didn’t need a better microphone, she didn’t need a new recorder, the very best guest, just to get things started with a bang: she needed to let the handbrake off and start moving.

I see this all the time – people are afraid to start doing their Epic Shit because they:

• Don’t know how
• Haven’t finished the course
• Don’t have a degree
• Have no experience
• Are too old, too young; too black, too brown, too  white; a bit too male, female etc etc etc

Sometimes they’re just plain scared.

I see those people, because I’m one of them!

And all the time, we are feeling worse because we see people who are not as good, bright, insightful or talented as us making progress. How dare they do that – they’re nowhere near as good as we are, and we’ll show them, just as soon as...

It’s like we’re sitting at the traffic lights of life in a hot car, maybe it’s a Lambo or a Ferrari, the engine is purring, eager to respond to the slightest twitch of our right foot. In our mirrors we see a little old man on a clapped-out, 50-year old Honda Super Cub moped slowing down to wait for the light, too.
No problem, we’ll leave him eating our dust, won’t we?

When the lights change we dump the clutch and stall the car, having forgotten to release the handbrake. We watch in disbelief as that clapped-out Honda lurches past us and pootles off down the road.

And did we hear somebody shout “wanker!” as they passed our window?

This is the moment when we decide that a Bigger Engine is the answer. Our Bigger Engine might be a higher dergree, a course, an internship or a mentoring program – all of which will give us more knowledge and thus, more power to apply to our sticking-points. We're convinced that we need that extra horsepower before we can move an inch.

But more horses - more courses, more degrees, better mics and better guests - won’t move you or me a millimetre, unless we release the brakes. Nothing happens until we learn how to take that bloody handbrake off!! Until we do that we’ll remain stuck at the traffic lights in our Lambos -  waiting, waiting...

We have “All the gear, no idea”, as the saying goes.

We are impatiently waiting to be perfect before we begin: wanting to perfect – right out of the box. And as we wait, our Lamborghini slowly rusts around us, the gas-tank runs dry and the engine falls silent.

Whilst waiting to be ready, the clock runs out.
We may die with our song still inside us, our greatest work a prisoner on our hard-drives or trapped in the labyrinth of our minds.

Imperfect action beats waiting to be perfect, every time. Rob Moore says “Start now, get Perfect Later”, and he’s right: I’ve used that phrase for decades: with guitar students, coaching clients and mentees, trainee croupiers and friends.

Do it badly, at first, but do it. I promise you that you’ll never be this bad at it, ever again. It will get better, you will improve.

Start Now.