The greatest obstacle to doing great things is the temptation to talk about doing great things. Talk is the enemy of greatness because it convinces you that it is a substitute for action. Talking feels like doing, and that feeling is exactly what makes it dangerous.
I have spent a lot of my life in rooms where talk passed for work. I sat around discussing theology in Bible college and the politics of seminary. I have complained about the business of revenue operations, the politics of the HubSpot world, and whatever business dynamics were in front of us at the time. In every one of those rooms, it felt like we were getting something done. Looking back, I can sort that talk into levels. Each level gets a little closer to real work, and only the last one actually is.
The lowest level: talking about people
The lowest level of talk is talk about people. We discuss politics, relationships, and who did what to whom, and most of the time that amounts to gossip. The danger is that it can feel like work. We tell ourselves we are reading the market or understanding the landscape when we are really just talking about other people.
The next level: talking about ideas
Talking about ideas is a step up. It can be valuable, because conversation helps you refine your thinking on a subject. It is also the biggest trap of all, precisely because it feels so productive. Discussing a concept is different from mastering it, and a good conversation about an idea can leave you feeling like you understand something you have never actually put to use.
Teaching and the credibility problem
To really master a concept, you have to teach it. Teaching is the next level, and it is a good one. But the credibility of a teacher should come from lived experience, and this is where the next temptation shows up: conflating teaching with doing. Teaching feels like doing just as much as talking does, and it still falls short of the real thing.
I see this more in the HubSpot and revenue operations space than anywhere else. The people training you on marketing have often never marketed anything themselves. The people teaching you how to build a business have often never successfully built one. If they had, they probably would not have the time to spend with you.
What doing actually means
Doing is action directly attached to an outcome or goal. I think of it as a measure: what proportion of the energy you spend translates directly into an outcome defined by the goal you have stated. The higher that proportion, the more you are actually doing.
This is the Pareto principle at work. A small share of your actions produces most of your results, and it is very easy to believe you are working in that small share when you are not. So here is the working definition: doing the work means performing actions that directly contribute to your highest stated goal. Everything else, however useful it feels, sits on one of the levels below.
Questions to ask yourself today
If you accept that definition, a few questions follow, and they are worth answering honestly today:
- How would you know if you were doing these actions?
- Are you doing them at all?
- How would you measure how much of your time goes to them?
- What percentage of your time are you actually spending on them?
- How do you get to the point where you spend most of your time on the most valuable things?
Is your goal the right one?
There is one more question, and it sits underneath all the others: is your goal correct, or does it need readjusting? Your goal determines which actions count as valuable, so a wrong goal means you can do the work well and still end up in the wrong place.
Check it on three counts. Is it aggressive enough? Is it accurate enough? Is it authentic to you? Then zoom out, think about the time between now and your death, and ask whether your dreams are big enough and your timeline aggressive enough to get you into what Benjamin Hardy calls slipstream time, where you spend the maximum amount of your time in what Gay Hendricks calls your zone of genius.
Takeaway: measure the doing
Talking about people, talking about ideas, and even teaching can all feel like progress. What moves you forward is action that directly contributes to your highest goal. Figure out what those actions are, find out how much of your time actually goes to them, and make sure the goal itself is big enough and true enough to be worth the effort.