Posted this quote by Mark Twain on my Facebook page yesterday

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

I even decided to use it as my header on this site.

It’s an exceedingly simple truth yet we spend most of our time ignoring “the start” – searching for THE SHORTCUT. Before we begin we prefer to focus our energies on finding ways to do whatever it is in a very short period of time. We want that “to-do” to be done with – lickety-split!

Yet if we but start, we might find that we already know the what and the how. We might find that we take less time than we thought the task would take. We might find super ideas bursting forth as we start the process.

Rich Schefren tells us that savvy marketers know that our unmet need for speed is an enormously profitable niche. Everyone peddles the myth of instant wins and overnight success. On TV or at the movies we never see the little steps the main characters had to do hundreds of times to actually get the result. There simply isn’t enough time to show it and even if there was – it wouldn’t be as exciting. So they show a character deciding to go on a diet and then cut to the character stepping on the scale 30 pounds lighter. They don’t show the daily routine, the consistent willpower required, or any other detail that caused the achievement.

The search for immediate success forces you to become preoccupied with finding shortcuts. Soon thereafter intelligence gives way to expedience. We confuse speed with progress, adrenaline with purpose and urgency with importance.

Stop craving an “instant life”! Remember The Acme Corporation featured in Road Runner – when Wile E. Coyote produced products instantly that failed miserably?

The consistent search for shortcuts leads to large disabling setbacks.- Rich Schefren

Nothing is immediate. Everything takes time. If YOU want to get ahead – GET STARTED!