A little ways back I was listening to an interview with Derek Sivers, former CEO of CD Baby. While I often find it hard to come to decisions, I’ve made some big ones lately. It got me to thinking about the Sivers interview. He said that when presented with a choice, he has one standard, “Hell yeah or no.” Now that I am focusing on decisions, I like this framework. He was saying, either I absolutely love it, or I’m not touching it. If I don’t absolutely love it, it’s not worth my time. I’ve been doing that by accident lately, but I think it needs to be institutionalized. Given how short we all are for time these days, is there any other standard that you should apply?
Sivers also talked about his attitude once he makes a decision, and this one rang true to me and how I approach life,
The Standard Pace Is for Chumps.
People always talk about how the journey is part of the adventure. That has always troubled me. I might make the most of the journey because it takes a while to get somewhere and why not enjoy it… but I want to get there! Just because I make the most of the journey, doesn’t mean that I focus on it. I hate waiting for something to be done. And while I hear all your snickers about me getting house projects completed in a reasonable time; just because I don’t finish one project before moving on to something else, doesn’t mean that I LIKE that. It drives me nuts and I have always tried to resist the pressure best I can. Moreover, when others see something as “done,” all I see are the details I didn’t finish. That stuff makes me crazy.
I’ve accelerated some parts of my life, and others have dragged. My proudest accomplishment in executing speed to market, was finishing my degree at Bentley in 3 years. I’ll leave the details for another time. There was a point in my career where I made a jump to consulting with relatively little experience and for a while I did well. I also made Director at Fido relatively quickly. But the stagnation has been killing me. Ten plus years in the same place can really sap your spirits.
Sometimes you just need a mantra or two to add to your self motivational routine. The standard pace is for chumps. Time to execute and deliver. Hell yeah
