CTFD and JFDI
I’m an entrepreneur, by most people’s measures.
I have 4 businesses. I don’t recommend having 4 businesses at the same time. It’s a shitload of work.
Nonetheless, 2015 is on track be my best year since I quit my job a decade ago.
But one thing that surprises people…is that I’ve never considered myself a risk taker.
I don’t like risks. I don’t like feeling out of control. Sometimes, that means I need to create a bit of control among chaos.
CTFD stands for “Calm The Fuck Down.”
I do like making things up as I go. I do like looking for patterns, for possibilities. Given a choice between two things, my favorite option is almost always going to be “hidden option c”.
But at the end of the day, I always make a choice and get it done.
JFDI stands for “Just Fucking Do It.”
While CTFD and JFDI don’t just apply to big decisions, this post is a great reminder that being in control of how we react to risks is one of the most important skills we can hone.
These 4 tips are extremely useful for even the smallest decisions, but only become more important as the size of your decisions and risks increases:
1. Don’t just focus on the downside; understand the opportunity.
What things cause you to panic? Have you ever stopped to realize that in almost all cases, there’s only a finite number of bad things that can actually happen.
It’s your job to consider that finite number of bad things and mitigate them.
Not necessarily stop them, but make a concerted effort to control the damage. You won’t always be able stop something bad from happening.
But the alternative is being SO focused the finite bad that you get in your own way. You simply stop moving forward.
So many great things are stopped from happening in the first place because someone is concerned about a bad thing that hasn’t even happened yet.
Mitigate the bad, and compare it to the upside.
What do you really want? What’s in the way? No, what’s REALLY in the way.
Odds are, the only thing in the way is you.
2. Understand that you will shape the outcome.
People avoid risk taking because they feel like the outcome is out of their hands. That’s usually because the outcome they’ve envisioned is too big, too distant, and too many steps away.
Very few successful outcomes truly happen “in a flash” as we imagine them, or as we’re promised they will.
Success is a slow build. Success is a series of decisions.
Almost always, a series of very small, incremental decisions.
If you stay aware of the long term desired outcome, but focus on the next step and the decision in front of you, you’ve got a better chance of shaping the outcome of the small decision — the small risk.
There’s also always more than one path to your long term goal.
Just because you don’t like the risk of one step doesn’t mean you’ll never reach the finish line. Look for other options. Think of it like trying to find the door that leads to the next hallway with the most doors instead of just trying to find the first door that opens.
Often, the path of least resistance is a dead end. But that doesn’t mean the path of second least resistance is.
3. Know who you can rely on.
It’s trite to say “your team matters”, but it really does.
Find allies. Find teammates. Learn who is trustworthy.
But also find mentors.
Mentors don’t need to even know they are mentors. But they do need to be people who will tell you what they see, even if you don’t like hearing it.
You’re likely to find a lot of people who will be interested in working with you — but not all of them will be good collaborators.
True collaborators aren’t easy to find. They give of themselves to the goal and they share that goal with others. Even when your opinions differ, egos matter less than the outcome of the goal.
I’ve walked away from many collaborations where me and the other person did not have the same goal. Or because they haven’t defined their goal at all.
You can’t define someone else’s goal for them, you can only keep asking
them to define it for themselves.
The worst days in my career have been when I fired someone. The first time, I literally puked. Twice.
But if they’ve shown you that you can’t rely on them, they’re already not really a part of your team. Move on.
4. Stick with it.
You’ll meet a lot of people who are action junkies. They’re the ones who mistake “action” for “results.” You know what I’m talking about.
JFDI isn’t “Just Fucking Do Everything” or “Just Fucking Do Anything”.
The first 3 months of JFDI feel different from the first 2 years of JFDI which feel different from the first 4 years of JFDI.
JFDI isn’t a singular action. It’s a different way of considering what’s in front of you.
Be thoughtful about how your time is spent because you’re in this for the long haul. Be patient. Stay humble. Play the long game.
Originally published at dangerouslyawesome.com on November 16, 2011.
