Now I know that's turning upside down on its head that age-old saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And I'm here to say that that is not entirely true, especially in today's highly robust market. So stick with me.
Stick with me and you're going to be set free, okay; especially those of you that seem to have a planning impediment.
Here's the thing. Planning is designed for controlled environments.
So if you're creating products, you can actually plan to create products.
So if you have a product creation plan, congratulations. It will probably work. Why? Creating products is something we can easily control because we control everything that goes into that process.
Want to bake a cake? Get a plan, it will work.
Why?
Because you can control the environment. You can control the temperature, you you can control the utensils, you can control the ingredients.
Now watch this.
Every dollar that you want to make in your business is in a contested environment.
So what does that mean?
It means, that the very plan you seek is probably the very thing that is destroying your success because most people use plans as straight-jackets.
When the plan becomes a straight-jacket and you go out into a contested environment to make your money... you smash against a wall and something doesn't work.
Why? Because planning does not work in contested environments; it requires strategy. Think about playing chess.
Is the game of chess one of planning or one of strategy. And if you don't play chess, you probably know how to play checkers at least.
Now for those of you that play chess or checkers, how often can you win if before you sat down against your opponent you actually planned out what it is you're going to do to win the game?
It's not likely you're going to win that way.
Why?
Because you have an opponent over there that is contesting every single thing it is you're doing. Right? So your plan is not going to work.
What you need is strategy.
Could understanding your environment lead to better strategies. What you need is to understand everything it is you're working with. What you need is to understand the strength of the pieces on the board relative to where they're placed on the board.
Again, what you need is strategy.
Let's go over this again. The very plan that you seek is probably the very thing that is destroying your success because most people use their plans as straight-jackets.
The plan becomes a straight-jacket. And they use this plan, they go out into a contested environment and they smash against the wall and something doesn't work. And so we conveniently blame the plan.
However, there is a solution to this. And that solution is to develop a flexible strategy that can quickly adapt to changes and challenges.
