Jay Papasan:
There’s never the right time. It’s certainly never going to be the perfect time. The universe just doesn’t line up that way. That’s one of the reasons when someone screams, “Ah, perfect timing!”, they’re delighted because that just doesn’t happen naturally. Timing doesn’t line up for us. And when we expect it to, we are bound to be disappointed.
So, you’ve got dreams. You’ve got things that you want to do. But this episode is out there for all of my friends who kind of suffered from what Wendy and I did, wanting timing to line up for us. This is for our planners. This is for our perfectionists. The world isn’t going to line up. So, how do we just kind of turn that corner and decide to do it right now? Instead of saying “One day,” we just get around to saying, “You know what? Today’s day one. We’re going to get after this sucker.”
Intro:
I’m Jay Papasan, and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
Jay Papasan:
So, after talking about it for months and months, frankly, probably for more than a year, well, we’re getting a second dog. Wendy and I would talk about it, and then we’d say, “It’s not a good time.” We would go and meet a new dog, go on a playdate with a new dog. Our existing dog, Taco, would like that new dog. And then we’d say, “Well, maybe after the holidays.” And then, it wouldn’t be convenient after the holidays. And we’d postpone it again. So, we just kept postponing and postponing and postponing.
We got really close once. We brought over a dog for a play date. A neighborhood family had a new baby. a baby and the new dog weren’t necessarily compatible. We found out why. When the dog attacked our dog and we’re like, “Nope.” So again, again and again, we got close. We wanted to do this thing, but it was never the right time.
So, this last weekend, after three straight road trips to remote places, we’re in Rhode Island, Wendy’s facilitating an event, I’m preparing for an event. I had one, two, three, four, five, no, six presentations that I was giving over the coming weeks. We decided, “Hey, I guess it’s never going to be a good time. So, we might as well go ahead and pull the trigger.” So, guess what? Today, we’re getting a brand new puppy.
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So, I’ll back up a little bit and give you the full story. So, a lot of you who follow me on social know that we have a dog named Taco. He’s a Brittany. He’s got a great personality. He’s beautiful and he’s sweet and all the things. Whenever we take him out for walks on the weekends, people are always saying, “Oh, I love your dog,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He’s a great dog, and he’s a great companion for us, and it was our first family dog.
And when I write many times on the weekends, he will have his head in my lap just looking at me with those little eyes. We go in the backyard, we play. He’s just been the great family dog, Taco. “Good boy, Taco” is something you hear a lot in our house. But he’s getting up there in age. His beard is starting to get a little gray. His father, who lived across the street from us, traveler, lived 14 years. And this year, Taco will turn 11. And we kept thinking, “Man, we probably should get a second dog before Taco’s too old to enjoy it. It’ll extend his life. It makes all the sense in the world. He’ll help train the new dog.” You start checking all the boxes and it makes sense. If you’re gonna get another dog, don’t wait until this dog is gone. Go ahead and get it now so that they can learn from each other. It’ll be a little bit more work, all the things.
And so, we’re talking about all of this, and Wendy was doing her pumpkin patch, and a couple that came through, this has been going on, we partnered with another person who’s been doing it for decades. So, we have three generations of people coming through this pumpkin patch now. And we’re chatting with this couple ,and Wendy’s talking about the fact that we’re thinking about getting a second dog. And the woman says, “Oh, we really regretted not getting a transition dog.”
Well, lo and behold, Wendy’s looking for the prize winner from her pumpkin patch. Turns out it’s the parents of one of her clients. They give her the address. She goes there, and it’s the woman she was talking to. And she says, “Well, guess what? After I talked to you, I talked to my husband, and we reached out to our friends, and there’s a dog that’s ready for adoption. And they’re calling it, I’ll put it in quotes, ‘Spot,’ because it’s got, she’s got a little yellow spot on her forehead, but we’re going through the adoption process.” And that made that lady so happy to hear that her words to us had gotten us to take action.
So, we’ve negotiated, and negotiated, and negotiated because we were out of town when we made the decision, and we’re picking up the dog today. But the whole point of this is to have a companion dog for our dog, to have a transition dog for us. All of those things, we knew we wanted it. We’ve known we wanted it for a long time, but it was never the right time.
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I was kind of kicking this around and thinking about, why is it that we never feel like we have any time? And there’s a couple of things that show up in our training and our coaching all the time. And I want to share them with you today. And you’ve probably heard them in past podcasts, but one is called the planning fallacy. So, this is a long-held psychological, kind of, fact that human beings always underestimate how long it’ll take us to do the things that we’re going to do.
In fact, the research again and again comes back and shows us, if you think it’ll take you an hour to do it, it’s probably gonna take you 90 minutes. So, we tend to underestimate the time by about 50%. And so, if you’re planning for what you need to do, you need to actually kind of add buffers throughout the day. Yes, sometimes, we are actually gonna execute just as fast as we thought we were going to do. But most of the time, we are really gonna get our timing wrong.
So, we end up packing our days, right? Hour by hour, meeting by meeting, we have all of these things that we plan to do. And in our minds, they will all happen faster than they are likely to in reality. And what happens is we start to kind of run over the borders. It takes a little bit longer here, it starts to going there, we have to cancel this meeting in order to make that meeting, and it starts to fill up.
So, the planning fallacy hits us every single day. And it’s about how we pack our immediate calendars based on how long we think it’ll take us to do the things, even though it’s gonna take us a lot longer. How this shows up in our coaching, I don’t wanna do this for everything. Like I don’t wanna pad every single meeting that we’re doing. It’s not just the meeting. It’s the doing is where we mess up with our planning.
But for my one thing, for your one thing, for the things that really matter most,for a lot of our self-employed people out there, you know that your one thing is lead gen. You need to go out there and find the next customer and the customer after that. And the people who go after it and do that tend to have the best and biggest businesses. If you think it’s going to take you two hours, budget three. Always budget 50% more, not for everything, but for your one thing. So, that’s how that shows up. We have a lot of things that we plan for, they’re going to take longer, and therefore we have less time.
The other one, and this is kind of funny, I read about this first in Cassie Holmes’ book. It’s called the Happier Hour. And then, I got to revisit it again in Sahil Bloom’s book, who is a recent guest on this podcast as well, but I got in his Five Pillars of Wealth. In his book, he also mentions this research, but it’s called the Yes-Damn Effect.
The other thing that happens, we have this fallacy in our planning, is we always believe we will have more time in the future than we have today. So, we know that our day is running over, the planning fallacy has caught up with us yet again today, and we have all these things to do and not enough time to do them in. And so, when someone asks us to make a new commitment, we know we can’t do it today, and we know we can’t do it this week, but we’re sure that next week, we will have time.
So, we make the commitment in the future. Maybe it’s tomorrow, maybe it’s next week, maybe it’s next month, it could even be next year. And so, we say yes today, and then when the day that commitment arrives back on our calendar, what do we say? “Damn.” And it’s like that slap on the forehead moment where you’re like, “I said yes. And damn it, I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t have time to do this. What was I thinking?” And that, “What was I thinking?” is this whole idea that we always are going to believe we have more time in the future than we have today. But the point is, we’re always making new commitments, things that we thought were gonna take a certain amount of time took more time. So, there’s always this actual backlog, this deficit of time that we’re pushing into the future.
So, this whole idea of, why do we lack time? Why do we not have time? It comes from, kind, of a combination punch of those two. And I’m sure I could research 10 other reasons. But we plan poorly, right? We don’t budge enough time for what it is that we’re committing to. And then, when we push commitments into the future, we always have this faulty assumption that we’ll have more time then, even though we have no time now.
A great kind of takeaway from this Yes-Damn Effect is like, if you’re not gonna say yes to it now, then you need to say no to it tomorrow. Because if you don’t have time today, you’re actually even less likely to have time tomorrow. So, if you wouldn’t do it today or this week, you probably should say no to it in the future as well.
But anyway, all of this adds up to this sense that we never have enough time. People, everyone, you talk to them, they’re gonna say, “How are you today?” “Hey, I’m busy,” “Ooh, I’m really busy,” or “It’s a busy season.” Some version of busy is always showing up because we always feel like we don’t have enough time.
So, how do we get around this? How do we take the next step? How do we get to the place where we just decide that, “You know what? Today is the day that I need to do the thing that I really want to do.” It’s not this other commitment. It’s not these other people’s commitments that are taking their time. It’s the thing that I’m committed to doing myself.
Let’s get to that on the other side of the break. Let’s take a quick break and I’ll see you on the other side.
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Welcome back. So, the right way to kind of get after it would be to kind of use the old Nike slogan, right? Just do it, right? Let’s just go ahead and make this sucker happen. And in some ways, we do that in some of the commitments we’re making. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the things that we truly want to do that we know that we might regret in the future. It’s the big stuff that we keep postponing, so that we get the right time. It’s the perfect time to do it. We keep pushing that second dogger, whatever it is, into the future, even though there’s a really high likelihood that we will regret it. So, interesting fact, just do it.
I happen to know this, I used to work with a lot of people that were in advertising. I played on the soccer team with a bunch of people in advertising. And so, I got to hear a lot of the lore and maybe you’ve heard it too, but did you know the origin story of the phrase, “Just Do It”? I love it. I mean, it’s one of the great slogans of all time, but Dan Wieden of Wieden+Kennedy, they were the famous advertisers that came up with it. He’s the guy who originally wrote it.
And so, at the time, Nike was struggling, they did not have great market share. Reebok was the brand back then. This would have been 1988. I’m going all the way back to when I was first starting college. It’s hard to believe that Just Do It wasn’t around then, but this is when it was born. And Nike is sitting there trying to take advantage of this kind of fitness boom that’s happening, but Nike is running behind Reebok. And they’re not looking like they’re going to catch up.
So, Wieden wanted to help kind of refresh the brand and bring a unifying message to it. And he’s looking around for, like, something that they can brand Nike with that’ll make them a little bit more prevalent. It’ll make them a little bit more relevant to the times that they’re living in. Here’s the shocking part. The inspiration for Just Do It actually comes from the execution of a convicted murderer, a guy named Gary Gilmore.
Now, Wieden hid this fact from people, but this is the actual story. So, this guy, Gary Gilmore, was being executed in Utah in 1977. And I’m not quite sure how Dan Wieden actually heard the story, but he did relate later that he read the story that when he asked if he had any last words, Gary Gilmore turned to the firing squad and said simply, “Let’s do it.”
And you can imagine someone in that position, maybe the anxiety, the waiting, the waiting, like, “Let’s do it.” And what Dan heard in that moment, Dan Wieden, it was like, he just changed one word. Instead of “Let’s do it,” he went to “Just do it.” And there was something super positive and motivational in this idea of just leaping into action. “Just do it,” it kind of captures this moment of impulse. You know what? Just do it. Go out there. And it’s gone on to become one of the most iconic brand statements out there. Just do it.
He actually hid the truth about this forever and ever. I think it didn’t come out for several decades that the true story behind this, and it’s probably really smart that he kept it a secret as well. But if you can remember the original campaign, there’s a picture of an elderly runner. His name, I’m looking it up, is Walt Stack. He’s 80 years old. He’s running across the Golden Gate Bridge. And when you get to see the iconic words, Just Do It, show up. And it’s this idea, here’s this old dude running across this iconic bridge, he’s doing this thing that’s maybe unexpected of him to do, and then there’s this phrase, “Just do it.” It’s supposed to be inspiring for all of us.
Really cool fact, Walt Stack, the runner, the 80-year-old runner, he never even started running till he was 57. Imagine, like, maybe if he had been like a generation older or younger rather, he could have heard the idea of Just Do It and started his running career far earlier. But here’s this guy, 80 years old, running and becomes, kind of, at that moment, the introduction of this brand statement, Just do it.
Well, I’m telling you this whole story for an obvious reason. That thing that you keep pushing into the future, we do need to kind of tap into our Nike right now. You need to just decide it’s never gonna be a right time. You need to just do it. You need to just do it. That’s all there is to it. We’re going to make the decision. Am I going to regret this in the future or not?
If the answer to that is yes, then don’t wait for the perfect time. Make now the right time. Instead of worrying about a “Yes, damn,” make it a “Damn yes.” Like, “Yes, I’m going to do that,” :”Heck, yes, I’m going to do that.” That slogan changed the course for history. They went from 18 to 43% market share. They grew from 877 million to 9.2 billion after that brand came out. Boom, changed their trajectory, that attitude, capturing that spark, the urgency of it, the simplicity of it, the empowerment of it, to just go ahead and take the leap.
Instead of waiting for one day, today becomes day one. Instead of worrying about a yes, damn, you’re gonna make it a damn yes. You’re gonna go out there and take that action. That slogan can be pretty useful for us right now. So, if it matters to you, if you fear that you’ll have regrets in the future, stop waiting around. Pull out your calendars and we’re gonna make a commitment right now.
Now, I have a good fun story. I’ve got one of my clients. It’s not the right time for her to be doing this. She’s got four kids, all of them still in high school. They’ve got one house they’re trying to sell, another house they’re in the middle of moving into. She is a cancer survivor. She’s got a husband who’s needing a surgery, for athletic injuries. She also is dealing with an athletic injury. Like everything that could possibly be going wrong is going wrong for her right now.
And what does she do? She looks up, she knows that it’s becoming time for her to tell her story. What does she do? She engages in an executive coaching relationship with me because we know what she decided. Maybe it was that journey, maybe the cancer survivor part of it, maybe it was that sense that I don’t know if there will be a right time, not because time doesn’t line up for us, but because maybe my time’s more limited than I think it is. We count on tomorrows that were not guaranteed. Whatever the case, she made the decision, and she’s going to, now, commit to building the habits to tell her story so that she can inspire another generation. Maybe I’m starting that process for her right now.
But the point is, whatever it is that you’re carrying around, thinking that someday I’ll do it, you gotta stop carrying it around. It’s time to put it into action. So, think about those things. Maybe you’ve always wanted to write a book. Maybe you always wanted to write that screenplay. Maybe you wanted to start a side hustle or start a side business. Maybe you just need to go up to your boss and say, “It’s time I got a promotion.” Maybe it’s time you went up to your boss and said, ‘You know what, this place doesn’t work for me anymore. It’s time for me to move on.” What are those things that you’ve been putting off?
You know, is there that special someone out there that you love that you haven’t told them? Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time for you to run for office. You’ve had this dream in your heart and it’s time for you to do it. Or maybe you’re just like me and Wendy. Maybe it’s just time that you can stop putting it off and you need to get a second puppy. Whatever it is for you, it’s time to just do it.
So, that’s my message to you today. That’s my challenge for you this week. It’s a short episode, I know, but it’s also a simple message. We don’t need to complicate it. There’s never going to be the right time, folks. There’s never going to be the perfect time, for sure. So, what is that thing that you know that you might someday regret? My challenge to you is to pull over the car, stop the run, open up your calendar, and in the next 24 hours, I want you just to put a commitment on your calendar to take the first step, right?
You’re not gonna write the great American novel tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., but you could sit down with a pen and paper, right? You’re not going to call your boss on a Saturday morning and get that promotion but tomorrow morning, you could sit down and start writing down all of your accomplishments over the last few years that make you deserving of it. There’s always a place to start.
And once we start, we do tend to be more likely to follow through. And the earlier you put the commitment, not next week, but I’m talking about today or tomorrow, in the next 24 hours, when we make those commitments earlier, we tend to take action on them. You know this from The ONE Thing, the moment we put that activity on the calendar, that meeting with ourselves to do our most important work, we become about three times more likely to do it.
So, that’s your challenge. What’s the thing that you’ve been putting off? What’s the thing that you’ve been waiting for the right time? In the next 24 hours, my challenge to you is to take the first step. That’s it for this week. I can’t wait to talk to you next week. And in the meantime, you’ve got a challenge in hand. Go take the first step. Just do it.
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