How do you feed your future?
“"Vision without execution is hallucination." -- Thomas Edison”
It was tiring consuming the same content from the entrepreneurial algorithm that said things like, “you just have to do the work” or “focus on your vision”.
But at a certain point, I had to ask:
- what does a legit vision look like?
- and, what do I need to do to get there?
So, here’s what gave me clarity:
- Work Backwards
- Identify Constants
- Chew Your Food
Work Backwards
It would be dumb to attempt benching 315 if you haven’t even hit 135 yet, right?
Uh … yeah.
Well, it’s no different when carving out your future.
Realizing a vision is a skill you develop from repetition.
And if you’re setting goals far into the future, it’s a good idea to see if you’ve developed the muscle to do so.
So for a quick sanity test, does your life look exactly like it did when you “called your shot” five years ago?
(Can you even remember what you wanted five years ago?)
If not, let’s “lower the weight” and guess what your business will look like in three months.
That’s it.
Three months.
90 days.
—> Where could you be in three months if you grew 10-15% each month?
(BTW, that’s not a trick question … you would be 30-45% better off. Not too bad, right?)
Identify Constants
With so many things that could go wrong, it’s better to place bets on things you can count on.
When Bezos started Amazon, he made three relatively safe assumptions.
He believed customers would always want:
- lower prices
- faster delivery
- and greater selection
He didn’t project market cap.
He didn’t project company valuation.
He didn’t project employee head count.
He believed people would want to buy from a greater variety, get those things faster, and get them at lower prices.
Now, that’s not to oversimplify the logistical nightmare along the way to build the infrastructure Amazon has now, but it does highlight the “big” bets Bezos made.
—> What three constants can you assume about your customer that they will want long after you’re gone?
Chew Your Food
The old Zig-Ziglarism rings true, “how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
Your business is made up of systems:
- Inputs —> Process —> Output (that gives you Feedback to go back into the Inputs)
And your *outputs *will not change no matter how many times you:
- look at your outputs …
- or measure your outputs …
- or complain about your outputs not changing …
unless … you do something different to your inputs.
The daily activities are the only things that make the machine work.
And if you’re in the very beginning, that involves experimenting to test what works.
Then once you have a sense of what’s working, switch gears, and max out as much as you can … daily.
—> What do you need to do daily?
To tie everything together:
- What does your business look like in three months after 30-45% growth?
- What are three safe assumptions you can make about your customer?
- What are your daily inputs that make the machine run?
… and if you want a surefire way to feed your future, head over to readar.ai to find the right book for you to read next.
Keep seeking,
Michael
