Your CEO friend/General Patton’s comments about taking action before things are perfect have been part of the reason I believe I have enjoyed the success I have. It hasn’t been a perfect ride, but it has been a ride and I’ve achieved more by getting in the car before all the lights were green than if I had have waited – particularly hard for a ‘learning to be less of a perfectionist’, or better put, ‘learning to proceed with passion and don’t sweat the small stuff’.

The 80% rule is a good rule. Get the 80% right and the 20% usually takes care of itself.

In fact, if I may go on - and I may, this is my post after all - you sent a thought back in July of 2007 that I still have saved as it was around the time I left my ’safe’ ‘little challenge’ job and trusted in my instincts that I could violently and passionately build a business. I have not looked back, this last financial year just finished, we have doubled our turnover from the previous year and do you know what - the thought you sent back then was part of the process that made me decide it was time to leap off the cliff and hope I would learn how to use these little babies attached to my shoulders to fly. Here is the quote from that day.

Many risks fail because they were not taken in time. Too many risks are postponed until unnecessarily elaborate preparations are made. This does not mean that one should say, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” That is foolish and self-destructive…But don’t sit back waiting for the perfect moment. It almost never comes. - David Viscott

Keep doing your thing Kirk, you change lives.

Your Patton quote reminds me of another military man’s quote - Gen. Colin Powell - that I paraphrase in a class I facilitate. In a discussion centered around analytical and intuitive styles, I bring in Gen. Powell’s observation that when you have 70% of the facts you need to make a decision, make the decision. If you wait for 80, 90 or 100%, you’ll miss you’re best window of opportunity.

I like this advice, but being the analytical person that I am, I’m having trouble applying it — I’m still trying to figure out how to know when I’m *right at* 70%!

Thanks! - Jim

As I read the T4D about wanting your kids blog to be perfect (or at least better) before publishing it, I was reminded of an old Native American saying “The way to cross a river is to cross it”. Too often in our lives we dream to “become” something rather than “be” something. I’m glad you went ahead and posted their blogs. Their writings demonstrate their own humor, insight, creativity and wisdom that none of us would get to enjoy if we had to wait for perfection. Thanks for allowing them to cross the river.

Tim out.