Fish or cut bait. S— or get off the pot.Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
How many euphamisms can you think of for “take action?” Sooner or later, you have to move or die. I know a lot of small business owners, consultants, and would-be authors who operate on the “I’m busy so I must be accomplishing something” mode.
The trouble is, they’re not. Activity does not always equal progress. It just makes you feel better so you can delay real action a little longer.
Real action can be painful. It means you have to make the hard phone call, write the proposal, draft the novel, practice the speech, ask for the sale. It means you have to risk failure.
It’s way easier to put that off by taking one more meeting at Starbucks, secure in the fantasy that you’re working on getting that next client. Except that he’ll never be your next client if you don’t write the proposal and ask for the order. But that would be risking a “no.”
I worked with a guy years ago at a small newspaper who used to say, “I might as well meet with so-and-so. I already don’t have the sale.” I loved that attitude. If you lose the sale, what have you lost? What you already didn’t have.
