A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. – George S. Patton
We iterate and grow, not prepare and then go.
We didn’t forbid you from speaking until you knew fluent, Shakespeare-level English.
Learning is a continuum. Not discrete steps. I’m still getting better at calculus. I didn’t have to know all things in calculus before moving on. A class, or a degree, is not a finite thing to complete before you’re ready to contribute. Contribute now and refine as you go. Or spend your entire life preparing and never actually shipping anything new.
We spend our lives waiting for someone else to tell us we’re ready. No one is qualified to do that. No one knows you well enough. No one can tell you your place and if you’re ready to fit it because there isn’t one. Your life is a continuum. Don’t wait to reach a destination that isn’t there. It’s like chasing a mirage that keeps moving away.
I’ve got an image of a person being pushed onto a stage in front of an audience for the first time. Don’t wait for that moment. It doesn’t work that way.
How many projects, ideas, or even dreams do you have that you’ve never started, waiting until you were “educated enough,” or “ready” for? How many partially complete? It is far better to deliver SOMETHING, and then improve it, than it is to never ship your product.
One author spent 7 years writing a book. When it was “perfect” he published it, and no one was interested. Wouldn’t it have been nice to find out no one cared about the subject before spending 7 years? Another started by printing drafts into three-ring binders and selling them. Using feedback, he refined his book until it was perfect. All the while, he got paid. Then he published the book. Which author are you?
Don’t wait to prepare and then go. Start, iterate and grow.
