Foolish Adventure

Well, I certainly could be the poster child for this episode!

I’ve always been a glass is half empty guy so I second guess everything or just put off making the decsision.

Here’s my two cents on some things.

I’ve mimicked a lot. My niche is video. So, if Izzy uses aMember for his video site then that’ll work for me too. So in a way, Izzy’s already made the decsision for me much like his mentor made for him.

For things like that, I think I’m more confident in making those choices.

I like the audio I hear from some friends film and I ask what they used for a mic. They tell me a Sennheiser ME66. Since I like the way their audio sounds, I go with a ME66 for my work and feel good about my choice. But again in a way, they’ve already made the choice for me by their decsision to buy that particular mic.

Where my confidence really wanes is where there’s no one to mimic. That’s when all the self doubt comes in to play.

For instance, I emailed Tim and Izzy about my eBook. Is my idea etc good enough.
Well, Tim said it best. He said basically “Dude, your the expert in this niche it’s up to you to decide if it’s good enough. You’ll know.”

It was certainly easier making the decsisions on how to put the eBook together as I could just see what other people were using and mimic that.

But when it came to creating the contents of the book, I had nothing to mimic really.
I guess I had been using mimicking as validation that this is the route to go. So when I was working on making my own original content I sought out validation to let me know I’m on the right track. Even though my menotrs really didn’t have experience in my niche.

But I do know as I’ve put this eBook together I certainly felt more confident and I know that if I do another one there’s no doubt that it will be easier and I’ll have less self doubt about it all.

Also, feel free to use me as an example for anything good or bad. Maybe if you say Kevin emailed us and asked this and this is what he should have done instead, we can dices it I the Foolish U forum on how I solved my issue or am still working to solve it.

I mean if I had that question or issue I’m sure others do as well. Maybe they’re not confident enough to put it out there but if they know someone else is having the same fears etc, then maybe they’ll feel more confident in getting the help they need to make their Foolish Adventure succeed.

I don’t think Tim and Izzy are saying follow them like a flock of sheep. I think they’re saying “Why reinvent the wheel?”
What membership program I use really doesn’t matter to me. If Izzy’s using aMember and it works for him then what’s wrong with me getting it as well?
They use Aweber for email. Doesn’t really matter to me what one I use.

Both aMember and Aweber I was able to see how it worked in action from being an Izzy Video Member. So I knew how it worked from a consumer end which was important to me.

I think we all know that it’s not the saw that makes the carpenter so just because Tim and Izzy use it doesn’t mean we’re all going to be millionaires.

Mimicking is also a great way to learn.
When I was shooting still photographs, I worked like crazy trying to duplicate styles some of my idols had done. I had to learn a lot about photography in order to duplicate their style.

Once I was able to do that I had a pretty good grasp on how to work a camera. So then I created my own style.

I did the same thing with video. I learned by copying until I could duplicate what my mentors were doing then I created my own style.

So I guess if that’s being a sheep following Izzy and Tim that’s fine by me.

Kevin – If you are the poster child for this episode, then I’m certainly the book the script was based on. For the past two years, I’ve spent tons of time researching, choosing tools, learning techniques, researching again, choosing new tools, learning more techniques…. but notice what’s missing? Nada for results…. or at least nada for any truly measurable results. I was just too hung up on getting all the infrastructure perfect before doing something with it.

And after all this research, and after hearing a lot of folks talk about having success with a lot of different tools, I think I’ve finally gotten through my thick skull that the tools really don’t matter. It’s DOING something with whatever tool you happen to have that DOES matter. And this episode put an exclamation point on that fact for me.

So as of today, as I continue with this Foolish Adventure program (and inside of Foolish University), I’m going to start spending a lot less time agonizing over what people are saying about the tools and a lot more time on just using the tools I have and getting it done.