In the video below, Scott Keffer talks all about fearless execution and why it’s okay to do things you aren’t necessarily comfortable with, as long as you make decisions, implement, and go for it.
Fearless Execution
(Below is the transcript from the video.)
Do not fear failure. I know, but I do. So rewire your thinking. Make decisions and implement fast. That’s what I do, make decisions and implement fast. I’m not comfortable doing it, that’s okay. I’m not … I’m guessing that ball players aren’t comfortable standing in front of a 90 mile an hour curve ball. How are they comfortable doing that?
I’m guessing that hockey players aren’t comfortable blocking a hundred mile an hour slap shot. I’m guessing, that’s probably the case. How did they get to that place?
Make decisions, implement fast, yeah, just do it. Perfectionism ensures procrastination. How many in here want to be perfect? So, this is helpful to me. So the Amish, so we have a fair number of Amish here in western Pennsylvania and in middle of Pennsylvania. When they do quilts, large quilts, they’ll leave a stitch out on purpose in order to remind them that only God is perfect.
So I have news for you. God is perfect, you’re not, ’cause you’re not God and you won’t be. Is that okay? Write down, I’m not God. Only God is perfect. That’s takes all the pressure off. So stop trying to be perfect. Use deadlines. Deadline to spur action. Deadlines make things happen.
So when I hired James Malinchak whose one of my coaches, James has a speaking boot camp like this. So I went to his boot camp, I hired him. I said, “I want to do that.” He said, “When do you want to do that?” I said, “December.” He said, “Which year?” I said, “This year.” That was in August. We did our first boot camp December 3. We put 47 people at our very first boot camp.
Why? Deadlines for me spur action. I would say, put it on the calendar, I’ll get it done. Why? ‘Cause I’ll tend to wander. Proactive action reduces fear. Proactive action reduces fear. Richard Koch taught me this, he’s the 80/20 guy. He said, “Action pushes out thought. If you’re stuck in the swamp of thought, get moving.” Get moving, take some action, proactive action.
If you want to be like other advisors, like I want to be accepted, I want other … I want to do what other advisors do, you’re going to get the same results. Don’t expect different results and done beats perfect every time. Oh yeah, come on, but yeah, sure.
So we took one of our mastery groups to New York Stock Exchange and on the panel at the New York Stock Exchange were five entrepreneurs, one of which was Mark Tebbe. Mark Tebbe had, you were there Keith. Mark Tebbe took his company to like 200 million dollars, sold it and then he was sitting with his son and this was in the original days trying to get an answer on Google and it wasn’t working really well so he created a search part. So a portion of Google when you went there, went to his search engine. And ultimately, Google bought it from him for a billion dollars.
Out of necessity he created that. He’s the one who said this. “This is the way I ran my business. Done beats perfect every time.” Remember that? That was a huge a-ha. Well what did he do, other than create a 200 million dollar business and a billion dollar business, 1.2 billion dollars, done beats perfect every time.
Who tries to teach you that’s not the case? Your broker dealer, your insurance company, compliance department, all of that. Never make a mistake. So Igor Stravinsky said, “My freedom will be much the greater the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength.”
So to me, I started to think about this, really? What does that mean? What happens when you take a beam of light with a flashlight and you narrow it down really tight, what happens? You get a laser. That’s what he’s saying. Laser, laser, your life and do it with external constraints. Like put ’em around you in such a way. To me, it’s your personal systems and your systems in the business by narrowing the field, you get a laser and a laser can cut through metal.
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