What I realized along the way to help me achieve my goals is to first discover the process that would keep me on track and then find the people with the skills to help me fully execute my ideas. While I know the process to completion, I tend to lose interest after I develop the concept to a certain point. But once I started locating the who to help me, I began to complete goal after goal. I even started finishing old starts from years ago! Nothing is out of the scope of the process.
I’m creative and can easily inspire myself to start anything. I can also work like a machine. What I’ve always struggled with, however, is finishing. I’d stall projects in my less resourceful days for a variety of excuses such as:
- I found other ideas that seemed more interesting or profitable.
- I don’t have the time to finish.
- The project is no longer relevant.
- It seemed (or really was) too expensive.
But the real reason was that it’s just easier to quit.
Another underlying issue is that I didn’t know the process necessary to complete my projects. It also doesn’t mean everything I quit just went away. Regarding my unfinished projects, many sat there, in a frozen state — mocked up to near completion and just begging me to open up the Excel file or pull the manuscript out of deep storage. My incomplete projects have been a constant thought in the back of my head:
What if …?
It drove me crazy. Not until I created a process to Achieve Anything did I start knocking out my current projects as well as my old ones.
This didn’t just occur to me, nor did the process magically solve my problems. I still needed to finish the projects, and oftentimes the reasons they stalled persisted, such as financial and time constraints. However, once I gained a solid attitude to finish, nothing short of death would keep the project from my intended end result. In some cases, even death wouldn’t prevent it because I gained from others the assistance that is integral to the project’s completion.
Several years ago, when I managed investments for institutions and wealthy individuals, I created an investment methodology powered by artificial intelligence, or AI. I built it up to the point of a workable prototype but shelved it due to “lack of resources, lack of time and lack of expected profitability.” This prototype essentially mimicked my investment behavior in public markets, and since I was currently in the employment of utilizing my expertise on a daily basis, it didn’t actually make sense for me to replace myself at that particular moment! However, the project screamed across my mind on a near daily basis.
Once I discovered the power of finding the who to help me complete this project, I quickly reached out to a developer who was interested in partnering with me. At this time, I was confident that I laid the last brick to complete the investment platform. However, the path to success is never a straight line.
I received an email from this developer saying he didn’t have the time due to his focus on his current business (which is understandable considering the COVID-19 crisis was in full swing). I was distraught for about five minutes before I reached out to a contact of mine who had worked on the early stages of Nyoobe, one of my current projects as of this writing. It turns out his team has the AI and database experience along with the attitude to complete the platform.
However, again, about a month after that initial conversation, I received an email stating he didn’t have the bandwidth and the person he referred didn’t have the proper experience! It seemed that this project of mine would never get completed because I don’t have the expertise to complete it myself at a level that I would be satisfied with (and I don’t half-ass anything).
But once again, a coincidence solved my problem, and luckily I was open to receive it. The first guy who didn’t have the time to build the project lives in Atlanta. He is integral because I use his quantitative software in the project. The second guy lives in Miami, and it would have been difficult but not impossible to get them together. Because I was open to opportunities, while searching for a social media freelancer to fill a gap in my marketing company, I found a guy just outside Atlanta with the AI experience I was seeking and the time to work on my project. Mick Jagger sang it best that
“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need.”
My attitude at the time was the critical factor: I had an attitude of executing my strategy to complete the project. My mind was focused on each next step, not what could go or had gone wrong. That’s resourcefulness that many people don’t have. Having an attitude to finish goes hand in hand with resourcefulness. Your steps will get derailed. Things will break. People will be notoriously undependable. I could have easily said, “Well, that sucks. I guess I can’t complete this project.” But I didn’t. I quickly found the perfect partner and maintained the momentum.
Resourcefulness and not wallowing in pity and self-doubt are the keys to having an attitude to finish. You must continue your hustle and find a solution. Someone once said,
Complainers always find a problem to every solution.
These people consistently quit and never achieve anything great. It’s the people who can identify the problem and quickly find the solution before getting pulled down in an emotional whirlpool who are the ones who can follow the process to achieve anything. These people are resourceful. These people constantly adjust their attitude to achieve the next step of the process.
Excerpt from Achieve: Overcome Obstacles. Find Time for Greatness. Develop a Framework to Achieve Anything.
