“In the event you select to not determine, you continue to have decided,” is a truism unusually popularized each by René Descartes, the seventeenth century French thinker, and Rush, the prog rock band.
We will at all times analyze extra information and write extra choice timber, however we by no means have 100% confidence in how issues are going to end up after making a choice. There’s at all times a leap of religion in some unspecified time in the future.
One my favourite “leap of religion” tales is the well-known origin of Harmless Drinks. The three founders, Richard Reed, Adam Balon, and Jon Wright, spent six months in 1998 engaged on smoothie recipes whereas working day jobs in promoting and consulting.
Sooner or later they introduced their new smoothies to Parsons Inexperienced in London for a jazz pageant, with an indication over their sales space that learn, “Ought to we quit our jobs to make these smoothies?” There have been two trash bins for the empty cups, one marked “sure” and one marked “no”. By the top of the pageant, the “sure” bin was full and the “no” bin had solely 3 cups in it. The three founders all resigned from their day jobs to begin engaged on Harmless full-time.
Harmless later grew to become an enormous hit, however success was removed from safe. It took a very long time for them to get funding and longer nonetheless to show the enterprise. However the choice to make the leap began all of it.
Final week I shared my 20-year cartooniversary of Marketoonist. For the primary eight years, it was a nights-and-weekends pastime. Twelve years in the past this month, I made my very own “leap of religion” choice to resign my day job and concentrate on it full-time.
I had been idling on the choice for some time. I had a marketing strategy and income equal to half the wage of my day job, however I struggled with truly making the choice to leap. Till, lastly, I did. All the assist I obtained from that “Making the Leap” announcement have been just like the cups within the Harmless “sure” bin to me. They helped give me confidence in my choice to make the leap.
I gave a private 20-minute speak about “Making the Leap” on the Do Lectures in Wales a 12 months after that call. I’m sharing it right here in case a few of you possibly can relate:
And right here’s a “Making the Leap” cartoon I drew the week I give up my day job to concentrate on Marketoonist full-time (together with a number of different associated ones I’ve drawn over time):
“If advertising stored a diary, this may be it.”
– Ann Handley, Chief Content material Officer of MarketingProfs
