4. Itâs okay to make it up as you go - Jonathan Goodman
I heard this advice years ago from small-business guru Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth books, and it led me to where I am today. After
30 years as one of the top business coaches in the country, he said he was still making it up as he goes.
Gerber helped me realize that even "experts" donât always know what to do. Instead of looking for solutions from others, I started to define the principles I would use to guide my decisions. Those principles would eventually allow me to construct a set of constraints, within which Iâm free to innovate.
The process is never-ending, of course. But the more decisions I make, and the more I learn from the results of those decisions, the more I trust my intuition. It tells me when to push to the outer limits of my constraints, and when to play it down the middle. And sometimes it tells me to redefine the constraints so I can make a bolder move.
Making it up as I go, but doing so within my own framework, based on my own principles, has made me a successful businessman. Success, in turn, has made me confident.
I canât guarantee it
will work for you. But experts canât guarantee their advice will work any better. You can either operate within constraints youâve constructed, or within someone elseâs.
Itâs your choice.
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