Build the plane as you go.
Sounds dangerous, right? And y’know, impossible, right? Because it is…right?
What it is, of course, is a provocative example to make a point. And if you get too literal
about it or overanalyze it, you’ve missed said point.
Now, for those of you practical types (a club of which I am a card-carrying member)
this just sounds entirely reckless and fraught with tragedy.
But the real tragedy, says expert mid-air-assemblers, is sitting there thinking about it and not trusting yourself or your cosmic wingmen (life experience, intelligence, resourcefulness, instinct, and good, old-fashioned chutzpah) to show up and assist you along the way.
To be clear, ‘just wing it’ is not to be confused with ‘just do it’. Winging it is having enough faith that as you do it, you’ll figure it out, even if you don’t have all the answers upfront.
Or, as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says, “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”
And he even used 90% as the gold standard, not 100%. Most of us want the result guaranteed in writing, and a practicality prenup in case things hit the skids.
Know this: Things will hit the skids. Probably several times as you wing it. So grab your adult undergarments and prepare to shit yourself as you pivot, reassess, freak out, fail, then course correct.
Because as Emma Isaacs author of the book entitled “Winging It” notes, “Winging it means more time spent going with the flow and celebrating the unexpected.”
Did you see that glorious, counterintuitive word nestled in the middle of that statement? CELEBRATE. If you think about challenges as opportunities to show us what you got, then IN-YOUR-FACE! us when you’ve gotten it, obstacles become a competition with yourself, which means you always win.
SPLIT JUMP
So, get out there, practical pals, and wing the living daylights out of it. (Because, truth grenade: even if you THINK you have 100% of the answers, uh-ya don’t. So you might as well try and fly.)
Geronimo!
As luck would have it, there’s a whole podcast episode on this subject. #89 from the Fix Your Chit chicks called, fittingly, Winging It. Listen if you like. Peace
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© LCRI
