In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson emphasizes the importance of taking action and getting started on your goals, rather than waiting for the perfect moment. He shares insights on how successful companies often begin with simple ideas and evolve over time, highlighting that having a detailed plan isn't always necessary to achieve success.

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Best Moments:

(00:50) The value of getting started on your goals

(01:58) There is never a perfect time to begin

(02:33) Facebook's humble beginnings as FaceMash

(03:12) Airbnb's initial concept for industry conferences

(03:41) Mattel's origins as a picture frame company

(04:29) Personal anecdote about career advancement in Jay's company

(05:17) Richard Branson's advice on seizing opportunities

(05:56) Barbara Corcoran's perspective on unplanned success

(06:52) Sponsor message for Marigold email marketing platform

(07:58) Jay's humorous story about avoiding neighbors

(11:02) Promotion for free email certification program at certifiedguru.com

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MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

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Check out this free content from marigold that Jay has loved digesting, 5 Steps For Selecting The Right Email Marketing Platform.

Foreign.

Welcome to do this not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately. You'll hear from the best minds in.

Marketing who will share tactics, quick wins.

And pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

We are back for the do this not that podcast presented by Marigold.

And normally I come on here and I rattle off some tips and some stats about different marketing stuff or whatever, but today I wanted to talk about the value of. Of just getting started. As we head into this end of year, you may be thinking about, you know what?

Next year I'm going to do this to advance my career. Or maybe next year I'm going to start that business. Or I'm going to start this side hustle I've been thinking about.

Or next year I'm going to do this thing in my personal life that I've been really thinking about doing, but I haven't done yet. And we're always waiting for that right moment. And here's the news flash. There is no right moment.

You're going to continue to wait for that perfect moment to do the thing because why, why aren't you doing it right now? Well, it's not the right time to do it. Or maybe you're taking care of a family member that's not well, so you don't have the time.

Or maybe your kids are little, right? I'm all over the place. I can't do this now. But a year from now, I'm going to be all set to do it. A few months from now will be better.

You know, for me, I need to spend a little bit more time making my plan. I need to save more money before I get started. All right? There is never a perfect time. It will never be a perfect time.

A year ago at this time, you were saying the exact same things. A year from now, I'm going to be ready. I'm going to start that side hustle. I'm going to get my career going in the right direction.

I am going to start that business. I'm going to do that thing. And here we are a year later. Life moves very, very fast and we haven't done it.

And the greatest businesses in this country, okay, were not started by their founders who had this amazing plan. They were like, oh, I have this business plan. It's going to turn into this, and this is going to happen. Whatever let's look at Facebook for a second.

Okay. When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, did it start out the way it is now? No. It started out as something called Face Mash. Okay.

We started out as Face Mash. You know what Face Mash was? It was essentially a website when he went to Harvard about rating how good looking or bad looking somebody was.

It was basically a hot or not website where students could rate the attractiveness of other classmates. This is how Facebook got started, by Face Mash. Okay.

It wasn't, well, I'm going to do the social network and people are going to connect and all these things. No, he didn't have this great business plan for that. How about Airbnb? Yeah. Do you think they sat down? Here's our plan.

We're going to take over the hotel industry and we're going to change people's lives by having them rent out their homes. Not even a little bit.

Their plan that they start out with was around industry conferences where hotels were selling out, that they were going to rent out air mattresses in their apartment and some other apartments they had access to around industry conferences, and that's what they were starting out with. All right, how about Mattel? Yeah. The big toy company.

Do you know they started out as a picture frame business and they started making a dollhouse furniture out of the scraps from the picture frames that they had. These companies didn't start because they had this plan. You don't need a big plan. You just have to get started. Start a podcast.

You have no idea what you're doing. Who cares? Get started. Get a free certification on something you don't know anything about and better yourself. Right. How about in your own company?

Let's say you want to advance your career, get aggressive and ask for the opportunity that you may be totally unqualified for. Maybe you're not even able to even do the thing, but raise your hand and say, yeah, I'd like to try to do that, if that's okay.

I'll give you a story about my own company. The person in my company that runs our podcasts and runs our social media.

That person reached out to me and said, hey, I know we're launching podcasts. I know we're going to be doing more in social media. I'd like the opportunity. I want to put my hat in the ring, okay.

To have the opportunity to do that for the company. And to tell you the truth, I had never considered that person for that role until that person reached out to me. And you know what?

I Said, you know what? You want it, you got it. Gave that person the role. She is crushing it, okay? And it's all because she's took that initiative and said, you know what?

I'm gonna get started with my career. I'm gonna push it forward. And that's how it works. It's not about having this huge plan, right?

And it's like what Richard Branson always says, the guy who started all the Virgin companies. He says, if somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you're not sure you could do it, you say, yes, and then you learn how to do it later.

This is what I believe in my own company. 50% of the revenue in business comes from things I wasn't doing five years ago. Why? Because I say, you know what? Somebody.

An opportunity comes up, I'm not sure if I could do it. I say, you know what? Yes. And then I try to figure out, and if it's not good, I bail on it. And that's for your career. That's for your personal life.

That is for your business. It's about getting started.

You know, I had the opportunity to interview Barbara Corcoran, who I think is brilliant from Shark Tank, and she says that all the best things that have happened to her in her career have happened after. She didn't have a plan. And she says the plan just gets in the way of the amazing things that might come.

So taking that leap and saying, you know what? I don't have time to do it. Who cares? I'll make more time.

I'll get up an hour earlier, I'll stop scrolling on social media, start the thing, because there's never going to be the right time. I know that's a rant, right? But it's just it whole. I don't. I don't like me being held back. So this is half for me as much as it is for you.

Because I need to tell myself, just go. Just do it. Maybe you don't know how to do it. Just go and try.

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Since you didn't ask, I have a question for everybody. I'm such a horrible person. Does everybody talk to their neighbors? I do not. I avoid my neighbors. And the weirdest thing happens.

So I live in this neighborhood. I've lived in the same house for 16 years. Okay? I've had the same neighbors for 16 years.

And I do everything in my power to not talk to my neighbors, probably because I. I don't know what my problem is. I mean, I'll wave, I'll do the old, hey, how you doing? From far away.

But I don't actually want to get into a dialogue with any of them. And by the way, newsflash, I don't even know all their names. I mean, 16 years in, I know, like, on. I don't know the person across street.

I don't even know the first name. Okay? Either side of me, I know their first names. That's good. I'm a little fuzzy on the last name. Doesn't matter. So, anyway, I know that's terrible.

So. And I've never been in any of their homes. Do you all go in your neighbor's homes? I feel like that's the strangest thing ever. So.

So anyway, I'm outside and my neighbor starts talking to me. I call it the vortex. If they actually try to talk to me and I can't get out of the conversation, I call it the vortex. Because I'm stuck.

And my family laughs at me whenever they see this happening because they know how much this is. Like, I can't do it. And I hope they don't listen. Who cares if they listen? So anyway, my neighbor's talking to me about this new like.

Like, TV thing they got set up with speakers or whatever, and I'm pretending like I care. I absolutely don't care. And they go, you got to come inside and see it. I go, what? This is like, this doesn't happen.

I don't go inside my neighbor's house. Like, 16 years in, I've never seen inside my neighbor's house. So they go, why don't you come in right now and see it?

And I couldn't think of anything to say to get me out of it. I usually am like, quick. I'm like, I'm like, oh, I have this. I have to go pet a donkey. There was nothing that came in my brain.

So I said, okay, I'll go. So we walk in their house. And it was the weirdest thing because I'm living next door to this person for 16 years and I've never been in their home.

And it. And it smelled weird. And it was everything that I imagine it would be. It was really strange. And I was like, what am I doing here? Is very surreal.

And he takes me over, look at the TV thing, whatever. And I'm like, great, that looks great. But really, what am I doing in that moment?

All I am really doing is using as much peripheral vision as I have and trying to document in my brain any weirdnesses that I see in the house. Like weird pictures or things that are really, like, weird, like out of date stuff.

And then I wanted to escape alive because I didn't know, maybe they have a dungeon in the basement and they were going to keep me there. I don't know. So I said, listen, I got a roll. And he's like, oh, wow, we should hang out. You should come over and have a drink or whatever.

I'm like, absolutely. My head. I'm like, absolutely not. Anyway, I escaped.

And I hope I go another 16 years without going in my neighbor's home because it was as weird as I expected it to be. And I'm a horrible person. And I don't know why I just shared that, but that's what happened to me this week. So that's what's on my mind.

Hey, weird transition. You got to go. Check out certifiedguru.com this is our free email certification program that we're launching in the next few weeks.

And only people that are on the wait list when we launch are going to be able to do it. It's free. It's going to be wild. You're going to. You can be able to put the badge on your LinkedIn.

It's this amazing certification program that we have been working on, but only if you get on the list. So you go to certifiedguru.com now. We're launching the next few weeks. Thanks for checking this out. Leave it a review. Leave this thing a review.

Come on. And don't be my neighbor. That's what you don't want to be later.

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over.

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