[2 Min Read] Kyle Eschenroeder on Taking Action

Successful author and entrepreneur Kyle Eschenroeder wrote an in-depth article about taking action. If you have time to read the entire thing, you should - however if you only have 2 minutes, we put together the best below!

Taking action is one of those painfully simple ideas that can’t be repeated enough: without taking action you won’t get anywhere. This post is about becoming a man or woman of action. Taking the actions suggested in this post will make it exponentially easier to take action in every other area of your life. You will begin to automatically do what you had to fight to do before.

Eschenroeder’s Two Main Rules:

1. Error on the side of action as long as the pain isn’t irreversible. We usually don’t know what the best option is. Maybe it’s best to wait, maybe it’s best to act. We can’t know, but if we set our default to action we’ll win in the long run. Action is normally against your impulse. Pain is good, just not irreversible pain. Up to a point, our lives actually get better the more uncomfortable we get.

2. Act before researching. This is not a rule against research. Benefitting from the knowledge of others is one of the most powerful things we can do as a human being. The problem is no longer that we lack knowledge, it’s that we don’t have an effective frame for knowledge. We all have massive amounts of wasted information stored. We were told to learn and so we learned; what we forgot to do was apply the information. Paradoxically, taking ignorant action will make your research much more effective. You will be amazed at the information you already have if you just force yourself to apply it.

Eschenroeder then explains his 11 Overlooked Truths About Action. Here is our favorite truth:

Action Makes You Humble. We must be willing to test the validity of our vision. At the same time, we have to be careful to not take failure too much to heart. Most adults are scared to have any vision because they know failure – they were burned. Instead of growing from their failures they cowered from them. They were made timid because they were afraid to get back into the ring. Why? Because they thought the abstract ideal was more important than reality. We rarely can bring our exact vision into existence – we are humans, like the Wright brothers. We go out onto the field with one design, crash, and go again. A dedication to action makes you humble while allowing you to do more than you ever thought possible.

Next is Eschenroeder’s 20 Antidotes to Perfectly Good Reasons for Inaction. We will include our favorite below:

“The conditions aren’t right.” The strategy? Focus on doing the best work you can today. If there is no opportunity currently then you better be getting as good as you can for when opportunity comes. And when it does come? Jump on it like it’ll never be back again. Again put your head down and seize the moment.

Lastly, remember that you only get one life to live. When you remember this, your experience shifts. You become more present. Decisions stop being so hard.

Tell us about how you have taken action this week!

Until next time, lead on.

The Leadr Team