The-Slight-Edge

160 The Slight Edge
Not at all. You need a plan to start with, the same way you need a penny to
start with before anything can double. The way you took your first baby step.
The way you furrowed your brows, pursed your lips and struggled to sound out
the first sentence you read.
Would that penny have financed an empire? Of course not. Would that
first step have won the Boston Marathon? Would that first sentence have earned
you a master’s degree in literature? No, and no, and no. But without that penny,
without that first wobbling step, without that first stumbling sentence, your
dream—no matter how deeply you wanted it—would never have materialized.
People make the mistake of thinking they need the
perfect plan. There is no perfect plan. By definition,
there can’t be, because a plan is not getting there—it’s
only your jumping-off point.
And that’s the reason you need a plan: if you have no plan, there will be no
jumping off. In fact, if you put too much energy into the plan, and make it too
perfect, you’re more likely to squelch all the life, spontaneity, intuition and joy
out of the doing of it.
Do the thing, and you shall have the power. Don’t try to figure it out! If you
want twice the success, double your rate of failure.
You start with a plan, then go through the process of continuous learning
through both study and doing, adjusting all the time through the kaizen of plan,
do, review and then adjust, like a rocket to the moon—off track ninety-seven
percent of the time, your gyroscope feeding information to your dream computer
to bring you back on track ... You need a first plan so you can get to your second
plan, so you can get to your third plan, so you can get to your fourth plan.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Keep holding that as
your philosophy, and you will generate the attitudes and actions you need to keep
progressively realizing a better and better plan.
Your starting plan is not the plan that will ultimately get you there ... but you
need it so you have a place to start.
In my profession, training is a huge part of what drives the business.
Training is the great equalizer: because we work with such large numbers and
such a sweeping diversity of people from all types of backgrounds and walks of
life, we train, train and train some more.
It’s not that there’s all that much to learn. It’s like learning to play the piano:
there are only twelve notes, after all. But to learn it, you need to hear it, and play it,
over and over. It’s as vivid an illustration of Slight Edge success as I’ve ever seen.