“Genius hesitates”

When we have a new idea, a new business concept, or a new product or service, we’re motivated to move fast.

We see everyone else out in the market, seemingly crushing it, and we strive to get in on the action.

We think that speed is the key to success.

When the opposite is true.

As Carlo Rovelli put it in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, “Genius hesitates.”

Moving quickly without thinking is no skill at all. It’s acting on compulsion, on raw emotion and energy.

But that doesn’t make us make us wise, it makes us weak.

Why? Because as David Ogilvy wrote, “The quickest way to kill a brand that is off in quality is to promote it aggressively.”

Until we have evidence we’re on the right path, speed is just going to take us in the wrong direction faster.

Claude C. Hopkins, the most influential advertising copywriter of the 20th century, wrote that most business disasters are due to “racing ahead on unblazed trails, in fear that some rival may go farther or get higher.”

In fact, he said, “All advertising disasters are due to rashness; needless and inexcusable.”

That rashness might come in the form of putting a half-baked idea out into the world, and using up all our accrued favors and relationships to promote something that isn’t ready yet. And it’s nearly impossible to get those same people to give us another chance when we say, “No really, this time, it’s ready.”

Or we might spend our marketing budget drumming up attention, without ever creating any purchase intent—because a good idea isn’t necessarily a good product or service someone will pay money for.

Or we might simply use up all our enthusiasm talking to people about our unfinished idea instead of using that energy to polish and finesse it into something people will actually want.

But this isn’t an argument for thinking instead of acting.

We must get started. But we mustn’t simply hope for our efforts to succeed, we need to make sure that they can succeed—by creating a strategy, focusing on the most likely outcomes, and thinking things through all the way to the end.

As I often say, it’s not enough to just consider, “If this, then that.” No, we’ve got to think about, “If this, then that, and if that, then what?” What comes next after we take our actions, and what complications do those consequences create?

We might imagine that committing to a large and ambitious marketing campaign right out of the gate is the secret to success, forgetting that we’re more likely to give up and stop early, before we see any results, than if we’d embarked on something simpler and more sustainable and grown from there.

Or we might rush into a seemingly smart partnership with a lead generation agency, imagining that they’ll provide us with all the business we need, but forgetting that it will prevent us from differentiating ourself in the market—the only road to sustainable profit.

Or we might strive to secure investment funding before we’re ready to fully employ those resources, and find ourselves burning cash and relationships that won’t be there when we truly need them—when we actually have something useful to sell.

Taking action feels like progress because it looks like motion—but motion and direction are not the same thing.

We have to learn to live with, and indeed relish, the uncomfortable feeling of waiting. Our ability to sit in that discomfort is our strength, because most people can’t do it.

Shane Parrish of The Knowledge Project put it best. When we do things right, when we take our time and think things through, “in the short-run, we’re always looking like we’re behind.”

“But in the long-run, we always win.”

Because we’re prepared. Because we know our value. And because we’ve preserved resources to be able to keep moving forward despite obstacles.

Action without thought and patience is more likely to take us round in round in circles than any closer to our ideal destination.

Pausing, thinking, and taking slow, steady steps in the right direction is always the better course.

Anybody can act without thinking, there’s no intelligence in that.

But genius hesitates.