[Progress Thread] Doing the things I HATE, to do the things I Love.

[Hello_World1]

Welp,

It's time for me to stop reading about swimming and get into the water. Let's begin.

Our Story So Far:

Idea Spark Moment: Recently, through gritted teeth, I had to fake a polite "No no, it's okay! Don't worry about it!" to someone. The resulting angry drive home led me to voice a lot of... colorful... "I hate" language.

Idea to Help Others: I wish there was a marketplace where licensed businesses and hobby-dabblers in this niche could share their services with people in their local community who need them. I want someone with zero knowledge and high on Nyquil able to stumble onto my site and still manage a successful purchase/sale so that people like me aren't driving home disappointed because my needs are "inconvenient" to others.

Challenges (TL;DR its Me, I'm the challenge):

1. Facing Vulnerability: The crux of my challenges. It's scary to attach my name and face to something that will be publicly judged that I'm not 100% solid on. (even posting this required a pep talk). The internet can be nasty. And it can feel gross to be called slurs and put down simply for standing out too much.
   Solution: Likely exposure therapy/tough skin-building. I can't control whether the gun of public opinion is firing candy, blanks, or buckshot, so I must build better armor to handle it all.
   
   
2. Combatting Action Faking: When nerves kick in (about the above), my defense mech is to invent stupid little RPG side quests that SUDDENLY matter more than the next step. (Suddenly, I'm obsessing for a week over which color/logo/font combo "invokes the right emotions" to avoid something I hate.)
   Solution: I'm setting SMART goals and mapping out micro-steps of the aspects/tasks that scare me to stay on track. When courage strikes, I tackle the scariest tasks first—like diving into recordings, facing interviews, and braving meet-n-greets. (or like now, posting this thread). Exposure almost always reduces my fear, just gotta suck it up and power through the first few times until my brain goes "oh, there's no danger here".
   
   
3. Maintaining Audacity: Pushing forward despite scripted people trying to put me back "in my place."
   Solution: I've spent too long in the herd, but if they're headed to the slaughterhouse, I can't follow. It's okay to shut down and shut out people who can't help but be pessimistic. (I might need to NOT SHARE so much with these folks. Let the proof be enough.)

Next Steps: I'm intentionally and honestly following the 7 P's of validation (Chapter 40 of "Unscripted " - for those curious): Plan, Proof (soft), Path, Prototype/Proof (hard), Productocracy, Propagate.

First Homework Assignment: Plan. Ensuring my idea aligns with CENTS principles or has the potential to scale and evolve to meet them.

I'll be back with my findings. Let's see where this journey takes us!

Update 2: Comment #8

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

It's scary to attach my name and face to something that will be publicly judged that I'm not 100% solid on.

This is normal human behavior.

Expect it.

And yes, it can be bothersome.

However, it is so ubiquitous, it's like saying, "I want to swim, but I don't want to get wet."

Elon Musk puts rockets in space, has cars on the road, and is dabbling with brain neurolink interfaces to help humanity.

He still gets an incredible amount of hate.

It doesn't matter how much value you produce and/or help others, other humans will hate you, or throw you shade.

Fix expectations before starting.

 

[Andy Black]

It's scary to attach my name and face to something that will be publicly judged that I'm not 100% solid on.

I'm not immune to what people say or think (although give less and less f*cks as the years go by), but I approach things in ways that are comfortable to me

Maybe check out one of my threads where I try to figure something out, or where I say "I'm thinking of doing XYZ. Anyone interested?"

My mentality is "I'm doing it anyway", "I wonder if this will work?", or "If I get enough interest I'll do something about this."

Would any of those mentalities help?


Even in my latest "Figuring Out" thread @S.Y. commented a few days ago saying

The way you experiment and document why you tried something. (And as a fellow Dad, how you involve your kids). "I had X I wanted to do, then tried Y and Z happened. Oh and you can watch this". It is fun.

I have seen your Figuring out X. LinkedIn is one that comes to mind. But I confess AI is a lot more interesting to me.

In my "Figuring Out LinkedIn" thread @safff gets value just watching me scrambling about:

Interesting, loving seeing a different business model in action, makes me think a little laterally

And here's me wondering if there's any interest:

MARKETING - Workshop on using Google Ads to perform market research (on a whiff of spend)

I posted this in the Random Chat thread yesterday but think some might miss it so reposting as it's own thread. I've been meaning to create content and a video series on this for a while but won't get round to it unless I make it a live workshop and someone signs up to attend. TL-DR I'm...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Maybe these two will also help:

MARKETING - Just start already

It was just after midnight on 10-Nov-20 and I was annoyed with myself for not starting a particular project I'd been thinking about for a few weeks. I decided to quickly post a short note to my Facebook profile before hitting the hay. At the time I had 880 friends on Facebook and had been a...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

GOLD! - HOT! - Who have you helped?

I had a chat with Tony who describes how: One simple question got him unstuck. He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people. He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter. His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book...

www.thefastlaneforum.com