David T. Fagan: Dreaming is Good, Doing is Better

I hope you like the title.  It started out as “I hate dreamers” but then I remembered my mom taught me not to hate. Then the subject line was “dreamers annoy me” but then I realized that wasn’t necessarily true either. Third time is the charm, “Dreaming is Good, Doing is Better.”

I’ll take a small time doer over a big time dreamer any old day. The billion dollar Nike motto is “Just Do It” not “Just Dream It.” There is a reason for that.

The key to more doing is to really reverse engineer your final destination. Discover where you want to be and then work backwards. Once you know the path you can break things down into baby steps. Here are some easy questions that can lead you to super simple steps.

1. What do you really want?
2. Sure we all want money as a means to an end, but what is that end?
3. Sure we all want more time, but what do you want to do with that time?
4. What kind of businesses and day-to-day activities do you like?

Most people can run lots of different kinds of businesses, as long as they get to spend time working on things they enjoy and that at the end of the day they make the most money in the least amount of time. In theory I could be happy running a gym, a restaurant or even a private school for entrepreneur-minded kids. As long as I am creating, marketing, transforming, selling, ultimately providing amazing results and magical experiences I am happy.

BEWARE: Although you can do lots of different things as an Entrepreneur, don’t be that ADHD Entrepreneur that chases every shiny object out there. Once you pick a business, stick to it for a set time!

Choose a time frame like three months, six months or even a year and then really work that business. If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t even start. The benefit of doing this is to ensure you don’t give up in the heat of the moment during a bad day or a bad month. Taking action in a consistent on purpose way is very powerful. Who knows where I would be if I just quit every time I had a bad day or even a bad month?

Once you know what you want and have set a time frame for making it work, tell someone about your plan of actions so they can help hold you accountable. An accountability partner is paramount. For a long time I ignored the details and tried to do too much. It was my wife that became my accountability partner…whether I liked it or not. Jill asked me the tough questions. She asked me about the details and the numbers. Although it was annoying at times it made me commit to my planned actions and it gave me someone to answer to.

Last but not least…do what ever it takes to execute the actions necessary to be successful! Be bold, work hard and just short of breaking the law…do what ever it takes! In the last 15 years of sales and owning my own businesses I have had two different night jobs.

One time I unloaded 53 foot-long trucks for FedEx making $10 an hour. Even though it was at night, it was in Phoenix during the summer. Sometimes it was still close to 100 degrees and the inside of those trucks were not any cooler. I went to work all day, had dinner with the family, took a nap and then unloaded trucks form 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.

Another time I took a paper route throwing over 300 papers 7 nights a week. It was humbling work. On Fridays and Sundays the newspapers were so big they took twice the time to wrap and throw, so Jill would come down and help me. We started at around 11 p.m. and would get done around 6 a.m.

But we did whatever it took to keep going, to keep taking action! I’d love to say I never gave up, but there were some bad days. And then a new day would come and I would start again…taking action! Maybe now you can see why my tolerance for dreamers who never do is so thin.

Don’t just dream!

DO!