The world is full of rule breakers, but also full of people making the same mistakes. It comes from a simple delusion that your past actions were correct without a pause to evaluate whether they were ACTUALLY correct.
Every situation is different, as a first step, reaching back to your experience ‘shelf’ will fail without using a bit of brain power.
Even worse? reaching over to an experience shelf that is not your own. Most people make more mistakes than they succeed. Including me.
Boot up your brain for a mere five seconds and you will make better evaluations of your choices, it takes longer to make the choice though.
By opening up your choices, even those that are obviously wrong, you get closer to the most likely to succeed choice. Five seconds, no more, changes your life.
Even with my average intelligence, coupled with a willingness to work hard, I am only ‘right’ 51% of the time. Not bad, but I have trouble figuring out which things I did right.
A mistake I see so often in ‘tech land’ is the ‘follow’ effect. The true entrepreneur is not on the ‘train’ but is building the TRACK. Which are you? Sh*t? which am I..hmm…
Resist the need to follow what you see at conferences or on popular blogs. It is just a different kind of experience shelf. Is it valuable? yes. Should it fuel you? yes. Does it define your choice list? no, but often it does.
History repeats itself because people think they did the right thing in the past and then apply it to the current decision. Stop for five seconds, recognize that now is different, open up your choice list and define your own path.
Note to self: read this post over and over.