Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is the secret sauce.
Anyone can find, or steal, an idea. It's as easy as a Google search these days. What separates winners from Joe Average is the ability to execute and the self-belief to take that leap. Most people fall at the first hurdle - mentality.
If execution is the secret sauce, mentality is the secret ingredient.
We are in an age of content overload. A few clicks away on the smartphone likely in your pocket or on a surface near you at this very moment, and you can find an idea or inspiration. A by-product of this, is that everyone inflates their life. Whether that's someone only showing their best life on Instagram, or Founders projecting confidence on social media, it's natural for us to compare ourselves against them. This can be damaging to our mental health and, ultimately, our growth.
Here are a three principles that help build a strong mentality, and will hopefully help inspire you to launch that startup, ask for that pay-rise, or learn that new skill.
There is always someone with more experience than you
A regret I have from my first 'proper job' was not speaking up more. I was in the fortunate position to have a seat at the table during board meetings, having taken the role over from someone almost 40 years my senior, but due to my age and lack of experience compared to those colleagues around the table, I felt I couldn't possibly add any value.
This was a mistake. I learned over time that the most polished CV and great sounding professional background doesn't matter if the person doesn't execute and doesn't hold themselves accountable. Great experience is a great teacher, but bad experience is a bad teacher, so the brand names on the CV aren't as relevant as the contribution of the individual and the lessons learnt along the way. Similarly, if someone has been at the company for a long period of time, it doesn't mean they know best. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is just what a company needs to advance, so speak up.
There is a considerable amount of scope to add value by executing in an efficient manner and adding value above and beyond your role.
Without getting too cliche'd with the analogies, Google wasn't the first search engine. Larry and Sergey could have easily not started Google if they listened to the internal doubt. "But Yahoo and AltaVista are already up and running and they have more experience than us." Let that voice win and there's no Google today (which seems fairly catastrophic at this stage, as I can't remember the last day I didn't use a Google product).
Elon Musk's SpaceX took on NASA, outlining some ambitious cost savings and product innovations, and won. Elon Musk isn't an astronaut or someone with significant experience in the space industry, yet he managed to apply other business principles and approaches to take on NASA.
The thing about experience is that not all experience is relevant. An example of this would be someone who studied for their CFA charter before the rise of pre-profitability tech stocks. They would have great academic expertise in fundamental stock analysis, like Benjamin Graham's cigar butts, but they would have missed out on the rise of Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and other tech companies. Compare that to someone more inexperienced, they may have dismissed fundamental valuation techniques and invested based on future cashflows and market size, outperforming their more experienced peers.
Prominent venture capitalist and past Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya recently articulated the benefit of youth (read: lack of experience) in terms of finding an advantage or a new trend in this video about Bitcoin, and his difference in views with Warren Buffett.
Everyone is winging it
A few years into my career I took the leap to speak as a panellist on a webinar in an industry I was fairly new to. Early on in the planning stages I got an overwhelming feeling of imposter syndrome, feeling that there would be others with more experience on the topic who would be able to speak to the issue better. The webinar went well, and it proved that I can execute on webinars and should not have felt like an imposter. In fact, the more speaking slots I have done, the more I realise that everyone is winging it.
Every Founder, CEO, and Manager that you know, first had to work things out on the fly. No one comes out of the womb knowing how to be a Founder. Even a few years into their role, there will always be new situations that arise, where they will just be doing their best and will be unsure of their decision. They are winging it.
They say that building a startup is like jumping out of a plane and constructing a parachute on the way down. Speaking with Founders, this sounds about right. What people don't appreciate is that careers, and life, are similar. Everyone is winging it. Of course, in some domains, there are levels to this. A neurosurgeon, for instance, has hopefully done enough hours of training that they are not winging it. But in general, a lot of people in sales, marketing, product development, customer success, and professional services roles, are still working things out on the fly.
The upshot of this, is that you should not let imposter syndrome set in. If others can do it, why not you? They're workings things out on the fly, you can do the same.
You've got to take risks to progress
Last night, the UFC crowned Francis Ngannou the new undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. His journey to this point is absolutely wild.
Francis was born in Cameroon, and travelled by foot from Cameroon to Paris, France to pursue his dream of becoming a boxer. It took him 14 months to get from Africa to Europe, getting caught 7 times whilst crossing from Morocco to Spain. Each time he was thrown in the Sahara Desert, with no food or supplies. If you're interested in Francis' story, hear it from himself in this video from a recent Joe Rogan podcast. Despite these setbacks, and starting training in his late 20s, Francis kept persisting, kept taking risks, and is now Heavyweight Champion of the world.
In order to prosper, you need to take risks. Whether that is taking the leap to start your own venture, whether you are going to ask for that promotion, or whether you want to expand your skillset in your existing roles into unchartered territory (like my first webinar).
Just like Francis Ngannou faced, there will likely be set-backs along the way where you really want to quit. But if you keep telling yourself you can do it, and don't let set-backs stop your progress, you could well make it.
Parting Shot
Combining these principles together, and applying them in a pragmatic manner are like a secret sauce to the recipe that is your career. People end up giving themselves objections to their own goals and dreams, unqualifying themselves when there is no reason why it couldn't be them.
Time is the most valuable commodity in the world, how are you going to spend it - asking yourself 'what if' or putting yourself in the game?