Execution – Take Action

If you’re struggling with execution and getting results, this article is for you!

If you really want to get into execution mode, you can’t skip this.

I suggest you read the complete article.

This topic is very close to my heart as I personally struggled with this for years.

I will show and explain why most new affiliate and internet marketers, as well as online business owners struggle so much when it comes to the execution of their plans.

Step-by-step, we’ll discuss quick and practical solutions to fix that.

Let’s dive in.

Preliminary Assumptions And Requirements To Make This Work

The following article and process will only work for you, if

• you work through this entire article
• you are 100% honest with yourself
• you don’t try to find a way to avoid the mirror and
• you don’t come up with any excuses but instead you finally face reality

Again, I speak from personal experience.

I was probably one of the best at procrastination - for years.

Lost years.

I truly was world-class at non-execution of my knowledge.

And I don’t say that with proud but regret.

I could easily have started several online businesses 10 years ago.

Wow.

Where would I be today if I had applied my knowledge back then?

You see, when I ask myself these questions, I probably have very similar regrets like you.

But Today, Let’s Change The Narrative

Yes, the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is now.

So let’s get to work.

If we can make small tweaks and get this process to work…

… If we become ruthless executors of our plans…

Then we can look back in 5 years from now and say:

Wow, that was life-changing for me!

But first, we need to correct a potentially false assumption:

It’s Not About More Or Different Knowledge

You heard the saying “Knowledge is power”?

It’s completly wrong.

If it was right, there weren’t any smokers, alcoholics and obese people around, correct?

But there are plenty of them.

Actually more than ever.

It appears almost as if there’s a negative correlation between self-abusive behavior and the fact of “knowing it better”.

So at best knowledge is potential power.

But knowledge becomes immediately worthless in the hands of the wrong person that is operating with a flawed operating system underneath.

We’ve got to get into the success mindset first.

Then we can take our knowledge and work with it.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

At first, we need to correct some “conventional, common knowledge”:

The Wrong Scale: Knowledge And Execution

You’ve probably seen a similar scale or graph already.

Some internet marketers try to make you aware of an important point:

Rate yourself on the scale above, now.

Where do you see yourself?

Are you more on the side of acquiring knowledge about a certain topic like “how to start and grow your own online business” but you never really put your knowledge to the test, never really practise it?

Or do you normally learn something new and instantly try to make it work for you by putting your newly acquired knowledge immediately into action?

Ok, now that you rated yourself, let’s move on to the right scale:

The Right Scale: Skills And Execution

Now, looking at the right scale, you might ask yourself:

Great, but what’s the big difference?

Knowledge was replaced by skills.

Think of skills as practical knowledge.

So the question becomes:

How do we acquire skills?

Skills Are Developed By Putting Knowledge Into Action - Over And Over Again

That makes sense, right?

But now comes the funny part.

Funny, because the process is recursive and therefore can cause quite some headache at first.

It’s one of the most important learnings of this article:

You can’t just replace the wrong scale with the right scale in your mind!

Instead…

You Only Get To It By Making Mistakes

We get to acquire important skills by putting rather inferior/small pieces of knowledge into action.

And then, learning from the feedback.

We have to take action on our so far only theoretical knowledge.

So we are not aiming for results at this stage.

Instead, we’re trying to simply acquire the necessary skills right now.

The most important part:

We can’t just read about it or understand it conceptually in our minds.

That is not how you get to the second, the right scale.

And this is not how you acquire skills.

What you have to do instead is:

Put your knowledge into action.

Let’s take a look at some diagrams to get a better understanding of the process.

Introducing…

The Execution Loop

Let’s iterate through it…

The First Iiteration Of The Execution Loop

• You acquire some knowledge by watching a video, listening to a podcast or reading a blog article like this one
• Then you put that small, new knowledge into action (but not to achieve great end-results at this point)
• Then you get an intermediate result as feedback
• You measure that feedback and correct your actions this way:
  • Either you’re missing some fundamental, necessary knowledge at this point (not very likely but possible). In this case you need to acquire some more knowledge before trying again / executing the next round.
  • Or you’re spotting some flaws in your execution, something you could do better practically the next time. So you plan the correction and go execute the next round.

That’s it.

Pretty simple, hm?

The Second Iteration And All Following Ones

To emphasize the most important part:

This is a loop for a reason!

It’s not:

learn ⇒ execute ⇒ end-result / end-goal (wrong)

It’s this:

learn ⇒ execute ⇒ measure & correct ⇒ execute ⇒ measure & correct ⇒ execute ⇒ measure & correct ⇒ execute ⇒ measure & correct ⇒ execute ⇒ end-result / end-goal (right)

How Many Iterations Are There?

Take a look at the diagram above.

• Step 1: Learn
• Step 2: Execute
• Step 3: Measure & Correct
• Step 4: Execute
• Step X: Measure & Correct
• Step Y: Execute

You basically cycle through steps X and Y until you reach your goal.

That’s it. The end.

Somewhere during the process, something interesting happens:

You’ll make…

Two Very Important Discoveries

It doesn’t matter what your subject is.

This works for any process:

• weight loss,
• starting an online business,
• learning to play the piano,
• …

Really, any skill.

Discovery No 1: You Acquire A True, Valuable Skill

Now, you will clearly see the whole picture.

You will recognize that the knowledge was just the starting point.

And you’ll easily understand why so many other people might have some basic, theoretical knowledge on a certain subject, but they don’t have true skills.

Why is that the case?

Why can’t everyone acquire the necessary skills to succeed?

Most people never put their knowledge into action.

They are stuck in step 1 of the execution loop.

For them it doesn’t really look like a loop, more like a linear but unfortunately wrong process:

learn ⇒ execute ⇒ end-result / end-goal

That’s just not how acquiring a skill works.

Plus, most people don’t try to acquire a skill in the first place but aim for immediate results.

Of course, without acquiring the real, necessary skills first, it’s impossible.

Think playing 1:1 against Michael Jordan because you read every book under the sun about basketball.

It’s useless.

I know this is not sexy, but it’s the truth.

Discovery No 2: You Become An Executor

This is really big.

We learn a lot about ourselves in this process.

By going through the process of acquiring a skill (by constantly and consistently cycling through the execution loop, over and over again) we change our operating system.

We become ruthless executors as a byproduct.

This is when things become very interesting.

At the same time, momentum kicks in.

This is also when you get graphs like this: (The example is about traffic, but it could be replaced by any worthwhile result that takes work)

]

As a side-note:

Red or “linear” almost never happens… In any subject.

The following graph is from my book notes on Atomic Habits by James Clear.

You need to prepare yourself mentally for the “valley of disappointment”:

In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed.

It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done.

This can result in a “valley of disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results.

However, this work was not wasted.

It was simply being stored.

It is not until much later that the full value of previous efforts is revealed.

An Expedition To Results Island

We all want to get to results island, right?

But we’re not agreeing on the path.

Here’s where most people get it wrong.

Most people think results island is located here:

Results Island - Wrong Location

At first, it seems to make sense, right?

Results island appears to be at the crossroads of execution and skills.

You certainly need some skills, and you certainly need to put these into practise, right?

Well, not so fast…

The more often you cycle through the execution loop, the more apparent it becomes that results island is way closer to the execution side.

Here’s the correct map:

Results Island - Correct Location

In order to get to results island - every single time - in any subject, there’s a clear path:

Cycle as often and as fast through the execution loop as you can, and eventually you will end up at results island - no matter what.

But if it’s so simple…

What’s Holding People Back From Reaching Results Island?

As we covered above, most people don’t acquire the necessary skills in the first place, because:

They Don’t Even Start

They aren’t putting any of their knowledge into action.

It’s very obvious at this point that in order to acquire the skills, we need to learn just the very basics of our chosen subject and then start cycling through the execution loop.

If we want to make true progress quickly, we need to cycle through it as fast and as often as we can.

The knowledge really is the easy part.

And often, it’s available for free, too:

==> Learn How To Start And Grow Your Own, Profitable Online Business, From Scratch, Even As A Beginner, Today! Download Now: Online Business Blueprint (PDF)

But What’s Holding People Really Back?

To answer that questions, we’ve got to quickly speak about The Dead Sea Of Anxiety and The Swimming Clueless:

The Dead Sea Of Anxiety

These people are trying to reach results island by permanently trying to acquire new knowledge.

They are accumulating vast amounts of theoretical knowledge.

These people are constantly consuming new information about a specific topic or a group of closely related subjects.

They are consuming content daily, for hours and hours and hours.

Without ever putting any of the acquired knowledge into action.

Thereby they never really acquire the necessary skills.

They can’t collect real feedback from their actions and they can’t measure anything because they are stuck at step one.

I was part of this crowd for years, being “pseudo”-knowledgeable about certain subjects without putting nearly enough of it into action.

These people “think” that they know something about XYZ but in reality it’s impossible for them to put things into action, because they are missing self-confidence.

And where should that self-confidence come from, when you never accomplish anything because you never act on what you know?

The Worst Mistake Of This Group Of People

They “think” they are smarter than the “Swimming Clueless”.

They even look down on them.

And thereby they become their own, worst enemies themselves.

If you’re still reading, it’s very likely that you’re part of this crowd.

Now, let’s take a look at the opposite crowd…

The “Swimming Clueless”

First of all - before you get a wrong impression by what follows - you’ve got to understand one important fact about this crowd:

These people are way closer to results island than any other crowd and they will get there, no matter what.

There aren’t many members of this crowd who don’t make it.

These are true action takers.

They jump head first into the ice cold water without knowing how deep it is.

And they don’t care.

They will figure out how to swim later, while being in the water, while already being on their way to results island.

Their style of swimming looks more like working through the water.

It’s not very efficient, and they constantly bump into rocks and sharks.

But somehow they figure it all out, because they constantly work with the permanent, imminent feedback that they get.

They don’t see the sandbank to their left, because they are busy swimming.

They will deal with obstacles, that are waiting for them on the beach, like deadly mines and a sniper, later because they don’t have time to think, they are busy swimming.

So you might be thinking how to find…

The Shortest, Fastest Way To Results Island

You see, the question already implies that you’re likely rather on the side of the first crowd.

Of course there’s no black and white.

Most people are not on the radical ends that I described but rather somewhere in the middle.

But from my personal experience, and after working with lots of new affiliate marketers and online business owners, I can confidently say you’re likely short on execution.

And while I absoloutly appreciate you taking the time and effort to read this article, it’s time to get into the execution loop.

You already have all the necessary knowledge to start.

Let’s get moving.

Gary Vee On Execution

Closing Thoughts

I hope you find this article helpful.

Thank you for reading and stay awesome,

Tim for Online Business Dude

PS: Become An Executor. Become A Super Affiliate:

==> This Is How.