The Vicious Cycle of Advice Overload & Inaction

There is no substitute for doing the work.

Validation is a weird thing sometimes isn’t it?

Growing up in the final remnants of the generation where the 9-5 job was pretty much the only career goal and the term “start-up” more closely resembled a conversation about the performance of your car – I thought I had a pretty decent idea of what I needed to do to succeed in life. What I didn’t count on was a nonstop, insatiable curiosity early in life that challenged me to go beyond the status quo.

Most of this served me well towards the end of college and initial years of my career where I began building a platform for myself in the health innovation world. But then there came a point where I realized I wanted to create something instead of just knowing about a lot of stuff. And let me tell you — when you cross over into becoming a maker, all sorts of things change in your mind.

While there are still things that you just have to learn along the way of taking something from idea to reality, there is one universal point that I want you to remember: you have to take action. Without the courage to take the next step, whatever it may be, no amount of advice from anyone will actually help you accomplish anything.

To be honest, one of my unfortunate go-to habits (and still one being worked on) was asking people to give me their thoughts on an idea. A lot. Like, every time. The funny thing was that despite their excitement about whatever concept/idea I had to share – it would usually never be enough to actually prompt me to action. There would be initial happiness of validation and then just like any other creative endeavor — doubt and ‘what if’s’ would proliferate. One of my favorite authors, Steven Pressfield, calls this ‘The Resistance’ in his book The War of Art. Not until I had the courage and a clear why to take the next step did I learn how to validate myself and learn the value of doing the work to reach my goals.

As you move forward in building a body of impactful work, realize that the Resistance will never actually go away but the courage to take the next step and act is always up to you. Execution will always be the thing that separates you.