I’m still trying to take in all the wisdoms of the book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Seth Godin speaks to my entrepreneurial soul. I’m guessing he’ll speak to yours… or at the very least, ruffle some feathers. That, too, is good.

I’m most inspired by his statement from the title of this post: The only purpose of starting is to finish…

The artist, creator, inventor, out-of-the-box thinker tends to want to tweak something one more time. Wait, just let me ‘touch up the painting.’ Oh no, my proposal must be reviewed one more time. Please, let me get all my facts and designs all lined up. Stop, I have to organize my thoughts before I say anything. Wait, that label just isn’t the perfect shade of color. And the tweaking goes on and on and on.

But that’s also how the gifts of the entrepreneur, artist, creative person never make it to light. So an invention that might change humanity, a creative piece that could brighten the world, or the unique idea that could set your business above your competition, they never get shipped.

When your resistance gives you all the reasons for not shipping, the idea begins to die. Soon it becomes a pattern. We suffer silently and become part of the I coulda, shoulda, woulda crowd.

Seth writes:

I think the discipline of shipping is essential in the long-term path to becoming indispensable. … over time-rather quickly, actually-you’ll see that shipping becomes part of the art and shipping makes it work.

I can tell dozens of stories of business people and artists that I know who just haven’t shipped. They have the goods, idea, unique product, paintings, but never finish. They tweak. They talk about soon. They say tomorrow. But it’s never shipped.

All the stories we read of success in any area of life requires shipping! In other words, the Olympic Gold Medalist had to enter the first contest. The artist had to paint lots of paintings and sell them. The writer must send the manuscript to the editor or self-publish. But if it lays on her desk, it’s never shipped!

We wait for perfect. But the road to success is created by shipping the imperfect! Then we can tweak it. Ship again. Soon something quite wonderful can often happen. Something changes in our world. We have the possiblity of getting better at our art and our shipping.

But if it’s never shipped, it can’t be improved upon. It can’t be gifted to the world. Genius and creativity and out-of-the box thinking cannot be released to be savored by our world.

So to all of those folks out their with an idea: start shipping!

You’re right! It may not bring you success. It may not change the world. It may not be the right solution. But the certainty is that if it’s never put out there, nothing will happen.

Here’s to those who start shipping!

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