Stop Planning. Start Doing.

This week is part three of our series on Robert Greene’s book, Mastery. Today, we explore the power of rapid experimentation to break through perfectionism and get us moving in the right direction…

🎯 The Idea In a Nutshell:

• The Wright Brothers won the race to manned flight against better-educated and better-funded competition.

• They did this by embracing scrappy experimentation over excessive planning.

• Their method allowed for tight feedback loops and rapid iteration.

• The Wright Brothers’ approach provides a playbook for anyone looking to attain mastery.

• The best results rarely stem from drawn-out, theoretical planning; they are the result of relentless experimentation.

📝 Diving Deeper

In the early 20th century, the race to manned flight was in full swing. While many of the contestants fixated on perfecting extensive blueprints and staging headline-grabbing test flights, the Wright brothers took a radically different approach; they focused on testing fast, cheap, and often.

They had no formal engineering credentials. No government backing. No massive war chest. But they had one thing their competitors did not: a bias toward practical, hands-on experience and rapid iteration. And it paid off.

In the time it took their competitors to grind through elaborate planning and launch a single failed prototype, the Wright brothers could run dozens of experiments, each providing critical insights that fueled their ultimate success.

Whether we’re looking for better results at work or at home, we often fall into the trap of perfectionism. We endlessly research that new business idea. We get stuck in drawn-out planning cycles. We think in terms of large sweeping changes.

Next time, try a different approach. Embrace radical incrementalism. Stop preparing and start doing.

👉 Why it matters:

• There’s no substitute for hands-on experience.

• Smaller experiments can be run with greater velocity, generating feedback and insights that fuel rapid improvement.

• While necessary at times, research and planning are often just useful cover stories for procrastination.

🤔 Prompts for Reflection

• What’s a project you’re working on right now where you’re overplanning or overreaching?

• How might you break it down into smaller tests that allow you to get feedback more rapidly?

• How would this approach impact your results?

Make today impactful.
~Jason

PS - This was the third post in a series on Mastery by Robert Greene. Check out the first edition below:

• Choose Resistance

• Stop Being Naïve