People have wildly different reactions to risk. For me, having a back-up plan does not necessarily mean that I’m going to yank the parachute lever when the going gets tough. (If anything, I’m prone to taking a long, circuitous, “challenging” route when an easier way is sitting right there in plain sight.) Knowing that I do have a backup plan is reassuring because I’m less fearful. The trapeze artist takes bigger risks when she knows there’s a net to catch her if she falls.
Other people may need to close off all exits. The famous story of Cortez burning his boats before conquering Mexico comes to mind… except I researched that story and found out it’s an urban legend.
Cortez didn’t burn his boats at all. He had 12, ran nine into the sand (to keep enemies from using them against him) and kept three – and a master shipbuilder among his crew. According to Fast Company and John Coatsworth, director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, “Cortez beached the ships to prevent anyone from heading back to Cuba to report to the Spanish nobilities that he was engaged in an utterly unauthorized and illegal expedition. He was running for cover.”
So much for Cortez motivating his men.
ser·en·dip·i·ty (sĕr’ən-dĭp’ĭ-tē)
1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.
Serendipity will bring you from where you thought you wanted to be to where you should have been all along. I don’t know about you, but very few things I’ve ever done turned out exactly the way I envisioned them at the beginning – sometimes much different. It’s usually just plain dumb to “burn the boats.” I’ve long lived by the phrase “never burn a bridge” which normally means Do NOT get all uppity and tell somebody off, even if you’re “sure” you’ll never ever need anything from them in the future – ‘cuz you probably will anyway. I’ve rarely violated that rule and have never been sorry for not breaking it.
Which brings me back to my story about Tom. He was describing the simultaneous launch of three or four different products, and in some cases building a new prospect list from scratch in order to launch them. His plans were thorough, as they normally are with Tom. Still, a little warning bell went off in my head: “Too many long shots at one time” feeling about launching that many products simultaneously.
When I went out on my own, the first order of business was to secure enough monthly retainer income from active consulting projects (hunting) to cover my nut. Then and only then would I embark on a much lengthier process of building a list, selling information and being a ‘guru’ (farming).
For several years I had 3-4 consulting clients who collectively more than paid the bills. So I could afford to invest in developing a robust information business. Once the consulting business was in place, I stopped taking new clients, tightened my belt a little, and invested in list-building and product development.
The guru income slowly matched and replaced the consulting income, giving me more options.
The consulting was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. For the most part, any particular project was a slam-dunk… writing a white paper or magazine article or press release or building an opt-in page, suddenly getting my client 15 leads a day instead of one or two – that, for me, was easy. (And sometimes a little boring.) They got the results they were after and I got paid.
