You Have To Earn Complexity
Here’s a weird thing that practically everybody in business does at some point. Most people do this in their personal lives too.
They fail because they make things too complex.
An example in the personal sphere: people who know all about micronutrients and how quickly you should take protein in for maximum absorption post-workout, yet never get to the gym.
An example in the business sphere: People who want to “start a blog” and so spend hundreds of hours learning about SEO, content marketing and reading social media case studies.
Like I said, we all do this.
I was thinking about this today because I need to scale the business I have and make it more of a professional venture… and then this simple rule occurred to me.
You Have To Earn Complexity
Sure, you can learn everything before you start. Or you can try to at least. It doesn’t matter the subject. In reality, this approach doesn’t work.
Let’s take learning a language for instance.
There are people who inhabit language learning forums who know every single grammar rule in their target language and can spend thousands of words debating why it’s impossible to become fluent in that language…
… and yet they can’t even talk at an A2 level. (That’s one above “complete and utter beginner.”)
Or the guy who is fat and yet knows all about why medium to high reps is a waste of time and how everyone should train a low rep, high intensity approach.
…or the guy who comes to me and says, “Hey Jamie… I’ve never done any copywriting before but would you agree that copywriting is dead because nobody falls for those sales tricks anymore?”
These are all beasts that enter your mind when you don’t just get on with it.
And eventually you have to get on with it.
People love a step-by-step guide until they realise they have to do the steps, and then suddenly it’s impossible or there’s a better way to do it or something.
In reality, whenever you’re a beginner at something, you need to just do it. Whatever it might be.
You don’t have the knowledge to know whether what you’re doing is right. You won’t have that knowledge until you have started and got some experience.
It’s unlikely you can come up with a better system than the one you’ll find by whatever expert you’re reading.
Just get to it.
Complexity Comes Later
Complexity comes after you’ve earned your stripes.
It should also come when you need it.
Let’s say – totally creatively – that you’re a freelancer writer turned internet entrepreneur.
Now, you might think, “I want to be a freelance writer, better get a Twitter account and start building my brand!”
And you don’t need to do that.
You need to go and approach some people who need some writing. There’s no point in building a brand because nobody is going to come to you with no experience, knowledge or track record.
You get all of these things first and then you consider doing a website. (It’s not necessary.)
And then you do something else. You start a little project website. You build useful skills and the money and reputation then go with it.
Eventually, you have too much to do and you have to start building some complexity into the system.
You do that when you’re tired of working all day every day but you can’t just disappear off the face of the earth because otherwise the water stops flowing.
So then you think about setting up funnels and lead generation because you need them.
You have earned the complexity you’re building into the system at that point.
Earn Complexity.