Almost everyone is trying to do the following two things in life:
1) Make money
2) Do work they enjoy
Making money is essential to living; if you don’t make money, you don’t eat. You can’t pay your bills or purchase things you want.
Just as important is being able to do work that you enjoy. Oftentimes the need to make money is stronger than the desire to be able to do work that you truly enjoy, but ultimately I think everyone desires to do work that they enjoy doing.
One thing that contributes to both of these is how often you “ship” your work.
I was exposed to the idea of shipping when I read Seth Godin’s book Linchpin. It’s a simple concept: you have to get the things you create in the hands of others. If you don’t ship, all your effort goes to waste because if you don’t ship all that effort doesn’t matter.
If your goal is one day to be a full-time writer, yet you are currently stuck delivering pizzas at Papa Johns, the sooner you start shipping your work the better. Sitting around and thinking about writing, or starting a blog but doing absolutely nothing to expose your writing to others (or even worse, thinking about starting a blog), accomplishes nothing. You are no closer to becoming a full-time writer than before.
I think any writer out there has written an entire post, formatted it, scheduled it, and then at the last minute deleted it. While this is sometimes a good idea (especially if it was an offensive post!) generally it’s much better to hit publish instead of trash.
The one thing preventing people from getting their work out there or introducing new ways of doing things to their colleagues, is fear of being ridiculed and laughed out of the room. In Linchpin one example Godin uses is the project proposal that has been sitting in a folder on your computer for the past year because it’s not 100% complete and/or the employee is worried their manager might react negatively.
When you think about it, though, which is worse?
1) Having spent all that time putting a proposal together and never even having another person lay their eyes on it
2) Having a higher-up look at it and give you negative feedback
I think option one is almost always worse.
Companies are looking for employees who ship things and are not afraid of having their ideas rejected. In a world that is filled with intense competition, outsourcing, and cost-cutting, employees have to ship. If you aren’t actively improving and innovating for the company you work for, there is little chance that you are going to become indispensable or having the freedom to pursue the work that you truly enjoy.
I don’t know about you, but thinking about the concept of shipping, getting things we create in front of people’s eyes and seeing where it goes, excites me. Perhaps that’s why I blog five days a week, even when I don’t feel like it.
While it is particularly important for people who want to eventually get paid to do something they love (i.e. writing, painting, coaching, fixing cars, etc.) it’s also relevant to pretty much anyone who works. If you don’t ship, you don’t get paid. If you ship, the worst thing that can happen is people don’t like your work and you start over…which is exactly what would happen if you didn’t do anything in the first place!
My question for you is this: What is it that you know you should be shipping but currently are not? Is there a website idea you haven’t executed? A business you haven’t started? Do you spend hours painting but keep them all locked in a closet?
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This is very true. 90% perfect and published for all the world to see is better than 100% perfect and stuck in your head!
@GregatClubThrifty Agreed!
This is so true DC! You touched on one of the main reasons why we started our business. We had held back for several years but did not take the leap one way or another. Now I wonder why we waited so long. It’s, generally, much better to think outside the box as opposed to hold back. If you never move beyond that fear, you’ll never know what others think about it.
It is like that you want to improve what is existing services around the market. Yes, to make a business profitable and to grow faster is to delivery quality services or good quality products to the right markets as early as possible time.
The Key isto quickly response or delivery the needs.
I definitely had thought about starting a blog for a few years before I actually did so. I was nervous people wouldn’t respond well or nobody would read. Then one day I said, screw it, and just put up a post and I haven’t looked back yet. It’s much better to put yourself “out there” and fail, then never try.
@StudentDebtSurvivor It did take me over a year to launch this site. I didn’t want to start it and then not stick with it. Thankfully I’ve stuck with it so far.
A great challenge! I know fear of negative feedback has held me back on more than one occasion. But I’ve come to realize I have so much more to gain by opening up and sharing myself. Plus, feedback is only negative if you view it that way. We need to take feedback and learn from it, not be so insulted or hurt by it.
@Luke_1428 It’s important to take into consideration WHO the feedback is coming from. I’d say 90%+ of feedback is pointless.
Good article! I think my biggest obstacle is time. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get everything I want to do out there. So I do focus on one thing at a time (ones I know I can give more energy to at the moment) an the rest sits in my idea book. I’d like to do an ebook about producing your own videos for blogs/youtube, etc. I’m not afraid of how it will be received…I just have no idea when I’ll get it done! And that’s just one of my ideas. :)
@Beachbudget I’d be interested in reading that book for sure!
I thought you were going to talk about shipping your work overseas, like this trader guy who was making $100K and had someone in China do his job for $15K while he played video games all day :). I have lots of business ideas every day but am too lazy to execute. One of my ideas is being picked up by a friend right now, I hope it works so I can claim royalties!
@RFIndependence Besides the whole security issue, that guy is pretty smart ;)
Great thoughts, I might have to read that book. I started my blog without a care in the world. I truly did it for fun and because I had an epiphany when I had some down time after a funeral. I blocked myself off from the world for a few days to just feel sad. One of the last days I had the idea for my blog and I haven’t regretted it EVER. It was one of those times that I knew I would regret it if I never did it. That is the reason I don’t regret the decisions I make. Every day I treat it like a writing assignment for school and figure out how, in every day life, I can take my lessons and write about them. I have only taken one post that was scheduled and turned it back into a draft. It wasn’t for fear, but because I did not want it to tarnish my professional appearance. It just wasn’t right for that. Everything else is full of opinion, my fails and fun. I don’t care of everyone calls me names and says I suck, because I don’t live for approval, I live for writing, other interests, family and friends. :)
Linchpin was an awesome book and I love the concept of “shipping”. I am currently working on an online class that will “ship” next week and I am excited to see how it goes!
@deaconhayes Very cool, looking forward to hearing about it (assuming you mention it in a blog).
I haven’t read that book yet, but that is a very interesting phrase. It can be applied to circumstances where a person even does start a business but then is too afraid, too shy, whatever, to tell anyone about it (marketing, advertising). We let fear hold us back in far too many areas of our lives, which is very unfortunate. I find that the things I spend a lot of time considering are the things I talk myself out of doing, and the things that I just go and do, without any worry, are the things that have worked out well for me.
I personally publish everything that I write, mostly because I write for me.
I really want to read Godin’s book. I’ve heard some really great things.
@Thirtysixmonths You should! A friend recommended it to me and I’m glad he did.
A few years ago I wrote an entire young adult novel. It’s about 10% edited. However, self doubt filled my head and it’s sitting there unedited and unread. Self doubt is a killer of dreams.
I had ideas for years that went nowhere, but now you get to read about them everyday on my blog. Great outlet for putting yourself out there. I also have a idea for an app to locate lost glasses, but I have no idea technically how that could get made.
I could definitely bring more of my ideas to the table at work. I have a lot them, but sometimes I get so bogged down with recurring projects, that pitching and implementing new ideas takes a backseat.