Waiting for

GODOT NEVER COMES!!!

People ask me how I wrote several books and was able to follow my dream to become a speaker. The answer is I did it. Now, I did not do it alone. I had a friend (who is now my business partner at New Year Publishing) who helped “push” me, as he does not like to hear excuses. Any time I made an excuse on why not to do it, he challenged me. Also, his philosophy of “Ready, Fire, Aim” has rubbed off on me.

“Fire” before “Aim” does not mean jump in.randomly…. there is “Ready” – which means planning.

In the play “Waiting for Godot”…. the main characters think when Godot arrives it will all be okay. He never arrives and they waste their lives waiting.

I have learned also that few people have “The Follow Through Gene”, so if you are waiting for another person to do something for you… unless they are rare, they will not do it the way you expect. If you are waiting, you are missing opportunity.

thom

Chris, great thoughts on waiting… and the difference between good and bad waiting.

One of my favorite quotes of all time… (I use it all the time..)

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
- Patton

For me, it balances that you have to have a plan…but don’t wait for it to be perfect. :)

Chris – I’ve been guilty of waiting and I thought I’d share my own personal story of waiting.

As you may recall, I went from rockstar to real estate agent. My time in rock and roll was awesome and allowed me the chance to do things others can only dream about. After fourteen years, rock and roll and I started to break away from each other – despite the travel to distant places, the fans, the money, the free beer and sneakers – I found myself a bit empty inside. I lost the passion and became a performing robot. Wake up. Eat. Soundcheck. Drink beer. Play show. Drink beer. Talk to fans. Drink more beer. Sleep. Repeat in the next town/country.

I found myself slipping and felt unhappy with that. I wanted something I felt a drive to do. I wanted to wake up and greet each day with a “Ok, what do you have for me today – let’s do this” attitude. Touring the world, as awesome as it is, had lost that effect on me.

During a touring break, I took my real estate licensing classes. I didn’t know if real estate was the solution, but there was enough interest to pursue it. I loved it.

Upon getting my license, I swallowed my fear and announced my “retirement” from my musical career. It was painful and scary. I became a real estate agent in 2008. Not a banner year for housing markets as you may recall.

It sucked. So did 2009. But I had waited and plotted and schemed and I am slowly getting to where I want to be. Along the way, I met people like you who showed me ways to take real estate to new places and even though I miss easy money and free hockey jerseys and the thrill of playing in front of 60,000 people, I am happy.

I had to wait to get here, but I had an exit, entrance, and survival strategy. There have been bumps in the road, but I was able to navigate them. I didn’t plan for everything – but I did plan and prepare.

The most important lesson I’ve learned since my move has been about the theory of “paralysis by analysis.” I’m good at it. In the beginning I saw it as planning, waiting, and biding my time. Now I see the difference between choosing to not act as I think out all the angles versus acting. Non-action leads to reaction, which can often result in poor choices.

Finding a balance of waiting, analyzing, jumping in, and planning is the real key for me. I try not to wait too long – for fear of staying put in the comfort zone, but I also make sure I’m wearing my parachute, no matter how full of holes it may be, just in case.

Thanks for being one of those people leading the way in front of me. You may not know it, but your examples are always reason to help me explore what it is that I’m doing – and make adjustments when necessary.

Our own inaction is an action, it’s the choice to not act. It leads to reaction, which is often action with no plan for the consequences or results. One reaction often leads to a chain reaction – events one after the other that are no longer in our direct control.

Something about failing to plan means planning to fail. I once heard that especially in the entertainment industry, once you get your job, you’re supposed to be looking for your next job. It’s hard for me to wrap myself around that, as I’d like to think I’m extremely loyal to whomever would give me an opportunity, however, as I get older I’ve learned that people aren’t going to be loyal to me, and that it’s very cutthroat. I would hope that a positive mental attitude would overcome this, as well as a plan to basically never give up, and never surrender….

Well, I’d say, If you’re sure it’s gonna work, why even have a plan? We don’t have a plan to grow up, we don’t plan before starting to walk (or talk). We just follow ourselves to the top, trial and error. That’s how I think it should be. Of course, there should be waiting, but that’s not always. Sometimes, you just give it a go.

What an awesome reminder. BTW, Just dug your newest book out of the pile. : )

Information changes so quickly that it’s impossible to exactly plan the future. That’s busy work that distracts from facing fear and actually moving forward. So many people say they want to be successful or wealthy or famous. But they don’t really. It’s more fun to talk about and easier to make excuses about why it couldn’t happen. I know – I have had to face the steely truth. Now I’m on to becoming what I really want.

Chris – The whole paralysis thing is deadly and so easy to do – especially if you have a tendency towards analyzing situations and like to think things through. It at times is my greatest asset and my greatest foe.

Moving from one end of the spectrum wasn’t easy. “Work” before involved rolling out of bed, not caring about what I looked like, and doing whatever whenever – yes, there was a certain level of professionalism required at times – but even that was nothing like the “real world.” There were shows I played that were so horrendous because we went out drinking or (worse yet) were drunk on stage – yet, we were still cheered. We could be crap at our jobs and still be fawned over. It was a weird world.

Interesting to think about writing on that subject. Perhaps I will take you up on that and see what comes out. A lot of what I’m writing now about my struggles with real estate are actually about that, but perhaps without defining it. I’ve got some thinking and tinkering to do now.

Chris- Waiting is my life story…but for me, it was the opposite side of the wait. I waited too long. I stayed in a job that I thought I enjoyed in a security blanket. It was paying well, and things were going great. I was able to work with family & things were pretty easy. But as the economy tanked the industry was destroyed. I saw the writing on the walls and still waited for things to turn around. I sat there waiting, hoping, praying for a turnaround which wasn’t happening. I had prepared to change, and had even had offers in place to make a career change, but leaving the comfort was something I wasn’t ready to do.

Then as my wife told me one day: “Do you really have a career, or just a really expensive time consuming hobby?” Ouch it hurt & pushed me to stop waiting for a change in the economy & step out on my own. I left the comfort of working with my parents & started on a new career path. This new career path in social media has definitely been quite an amazing & wild journey to say the least. While it has had many ups & downs, I am still thankful for the fact that I stopped waiting & finally took the leap.

Without that leap, I would have never had the opportunity of speaking in front of thousands around the country, or meeting great people like yourself. Heck, I know for sure I never would have started a current business with a guy in Austin Texas that I only met through social media!

You are correct, take time and plan before leaping out… plot your steps, but don’t fear the leap once you have them set up.

I can relate to what you’ve wrote here, I think it’s kinda fun to make a plan and plant different seeds. This is extremely beneficial to creatives because it makes it seen to others as if you magically have new things lined up when one ends or fails… But the truth is there’s much forethought and planning before a move is made. Not TOO much, but just enough to keep your ship afloat!

I am so glad to see you touch on “the right kind of waiting.” I think there is often a tendency for people to wait for someone to do it for them, or tell them what to do next. Waiting comes only after planning. I like to think of it like a cheetah stalking it’s pray. If they just laid around in a field, they might get lucky every once in a while, but that’s not what they do. Cheetahs stalk their prey (planning), approaching to within about 50 feet (waiting) before dashing out from cover and sprinting at the targeted animals (acting).

“Godot never comes” – love that!

A couple of years ago, I read an interview of one of the Klaatu guys (progressive art rock from late 70s). He said it came down to whether he could be an outstanding musician or an outstanding accountant.

He chose to be an outstanding accountant.

Opportunity comes to those who think it’s coming. : )

Brilliant.

What a lovely story! Thanks for sharing it. : )

This is so true! So many people say they’re waiting for just the right time to take action, but the truth is, there is never the “right” time. All you can do is figure out what you want, plan for it and take action to make it happen!

It’s crazy to think how much time we all waste just waiting for things to happen or fall into place. We need to be more proactive in getting what we want!

Love the article. It’s so in line with my thoughts right now.

I call it putting one foot in front of the other and expecting their to be ground there to walk on… I’m a recovering plan-a-holic… A fantastic post.

Thanks Chris, this article really hits close to home for me. I am still very new to blogs, internet marketing, etc… but I’ve discovered that the idea of setting off to do something new is very appealing to me. Unfortunately, I am naturally a very cautious person when it comes to trying something new. I have no problem with the planning but this type of articles remind me of the importance of moving ahead.

The ride in the beginning was quite wild & stressful, but it in the past few months it has become really awesome! Being able to run my own business and meet awesome & amazing people is great. Not to mention I am now actually doing things that I enjoy instead of just what I feel I have to do to pay the bills & provide for the family is pure bliss.

Also, the fact that I have a great business partner in Jason Crouch makes it great as well. He is a just a really good guy. Talking about the power of social media and knowing your steps and waiting…I first was going to start out into business by myself, but just didn’t feel like it was the right decision. Then in December as Jason & I were talking we discussed starting it together. It felt right, we had a gameplan and we both knew what we wanted to accomplish and how we wanted to go about this. There was no more hesitation and we stepped out with it because the groundwork was now in place.

Here’s the wild part: The first time we actually met each other in person was at the end of March. It has been great!