I've got a printed copy of my book in my hands. It arrived yesterday.
And I'm thinking about the sign that's been sitting on my desk for years.
Three words. Done Beats Perfect.
A line that stuck
It started about five years earlier, with a video I shot outside a hotel where I'd been running an event. I'm not sure if that was the first time I ever said "Done beats perfect" or just the first time I caught it on camera. Either way, it stuck. It quickly became my tagline as a speaker.
After that it got everywhere.
It sat on that sign in my office, reminding me of my own mantra whenever I sat down to work. I had it printed on stickers and gave them to clients. I used it to sign off countless emails and videos. It went at the end of the playbooks I wrote for my high ticket clients. I've said it on stage more times than I can count or remember.
And for all that time, I hadn't turned it into the one thing I kept saying I would. A book.
There's a joke in there somewhere. The man with Done Beats Perfect on his desk, not getting the book done because it wasn't perfect yet.
What it does and doesn't mean
For the record, Done Beats Perfect doesn't mean any old junk will do. It means doing things to the best of your ability. Doing things you can be proud of. And actually doing them.
So no waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect conditions, or until you've got every resource figured out. Get resourceful and build momentum.
It's about deciding what you want and going after it. Most of all, it's deciding who you want to be and showing up that way.
Taking my own advice
So I finally followed my own advice. I wrote the book. It took way longer than I expected and threw a few challenges at me along the way. On 1 March 2021 the manuscript was done. Was it perfect? Probably not. But it was finished, and I was incredibly proud of it.
I even designed the cover myself, and I made it look imperfect on purpose. It would have been a bit odd to put a book called Done Beats Perfect inside a flawless cover.
Then I got it published, which is a story for another day. And yesterday, all 150 pages of it landed in my hands. By a year later it was out on Kindle, in paperback and hardback, and as an audiobook.
Holding that first copy felt different to anything I'd done with the phrase before.
So what's the thing you keep saying you'll do one day?
