Forward Progress
We get stuck when there's no process. Step 1 if there's not process is to create one!
Trust the Process.
Dave Grohl once said that we are always moving forward in time. He constantly seeks new challenges and tests his limits. That's a great way to live.
Adversity is an opportunity to keep moving forward.
(Challenges, setbacks, etc..)
Can you see the incremental progress? It usually evolves slowly.
Can you stay committed to progress itself?
Are you taking steps to make [YOUR IDEA] as good as it can be?
Start with yourself. Are you the best version of yourself?
Determine the market need for your idea and then adapt your idea to fit the need.
I picked a market I knew very well after 15 years. I knew the market I was going into better than anyone. I think you are at a big disadvantage when you go into a market you know nothing about.
No Zero Days
Takeaways:
- A little progress is better than none
- Halve the goal until it's actionable
- Don't Break the Chain
Finding Nemo
In the Pixar movie Finding Nemo (and its sequel Finding Dory), Dory (played by Ellen DeGeneres) is a wide-eyed, blue tang fish who suffers from memory loss every 10 seconds or so. Dory is a friendly, optimistic, innocent fish who tries – and tries – to be helpful. She becomes friends with Marlin, a clown fish who has just lost his only son.
For those not familiar with the movie, careful and overly cautious clownfish Marlin (An Enneagram Type 5) wants to overanalyze every situation, think through the options, and make a calculated thoughtful decision about what to do next. For Dory, a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, the solution to every problem is to just keep swimming.
Dory offers to help Marlin find Nemo. In fact, she insists on it and doesn’t take no for an answer. The search is very difficult. Along the way, they face a variety of challenges in their attempt to solve the problems facing them which leads Marlin to want to give up.
Every time Marlin feels like giving up Dory says to him, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”
DORY: When life gets you down, you know what you got to (gotta) do?
MARLIN: I don’t want to know what you got to (gotta) do.
DORY: Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.
With these words, Dory is telling her friend that he should not give up. He should keep looking for his son.
Here’s the thing: at some point, we all face a difficult situation. Our natural inclination might be to be Marlin – analyze, plan, review every alternative, think things through. These difficult situations cause us to maybe feel frightened, sad or overwhelmed. And we may want to give up. We want to quit. It is at this point that we realize that sometimes we need to be Dory and “just keep swimming.”
The idea of just to keep swimming gives us the hope we need to reach our goal – to finish strong, and to persevere through the hard times. Essentially, to never give up. This is the most significant lesson taught in the film. Marlin and Dory face numerous challenges trying to find Nemo, but they never give up – they just keep swimming. By the end of the movie, they find Nemo.
When it comes to living your life to the fullest. Take a tip from Jimmy Buffett: Finish strong. The future is yet to be determined, but the only path to it is to just keep swimming.
2024 like the last few years, is uncertain as ever. We have two candiates nobody wants for president. One is showing signs of Agnotology (why isn't anybody asking WHY he took so many classified documents), the other is so old that most of his question his mental capability to hold the highest office in the most powerful country in the world.
All we can do, is heed the advice of a fish with no long-term memory: keep swimming.