When I was a kid, I had a scout master who told me something while we were getting our fishing merit badge that I’ve never forgotten to this day.

He said when you fish, you have to think about how much time your line is in the water. Some people plan a day to go “fishing”, and then end up spending 6 of the 8 ours with their line out of the water.

They spend time making sure all of their hooks are in perfect shape, baiting every line, preparing their lunch, eating their lunch, trolling for good spots, moving their boat to look for new spots, and on and on and on. And those people tend to think that they’re “optimizing” their fishing experience. After all, they’re always trying to make sure that the experience is perfect in every way.

Other people (the ones who, unsurprisingly, have more success) focus on one thing and one thing only: maximizing the time their line is in the water.

So they don’t worry as much about moving their boat to “find a better spot”, or chatting with other people, or fussing with their lines more than they have to. They understand that the primary factor of success while fishing is how much time your line is in the water.

That has stuck with me for a long time, and I find myself falling into the former camp way more often than I like to admit. Not with fishing per se, but it’s probably my biggest hurdle in any kind of creative endeavor. I’m always trying to create an “ideal environment”, as though I’ve actually done enough creating to have tested different “environments” against each other, instead of just focusing on “getting my line in the water” (i.e. doing it).

I see this same attitude all the time with people I interact with. People lose focus on the doing of a thing because they are hung up on the manner in which that thing is done.

Sometimes it manifests as buying actual peripherals for their computer setup, like the latest monitor, the nicest MacBook, the best webcam, the nicest microphone, etc.

Sometimes it’s a little less subtle. Sometimes people are always looking for ways to repurpose what someone else has done, instead of trying to create something of their own. How many millions of dollars have been spent on “Copy Swipe Files”, in an effort to short-cut the path to writing copy? How many thousands of hours have been spent at conferences taking notes to try and reverse-engineer someone else’s funnel or business?

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with buying cool tech for your desk or using someone’s swipe files to get you started on a marketing campaign - that’s not really what I’m getting at. My point is this:

When did we all become so afraid of laying ourselves bare and just being who we are?

I have a personal example of this (it’s the video below)

About 5 years ago, I decided to start writing some music. It had been about 10 years since I’d written anything, and it felt long overdue.

I knew that I had ideas that would make for good songs, but I was also convinced that I wasn’t a performer, so I created the songs the same way I’ve done a lot of things - by piecing together smaller sections, fitting them together, rearranging them, and them making them into a song.

It’s like instead of writing a song, I wrote a riff, a verse, a chorus, and a bridge, and then tried to assemble them into a song as best I could.

And in fact, I was so thoroughly convinced that I’d never be a good performer, I never (not once) performed the song all the way through, even to myself.

Once I’d recorded the component parts, I let that be it.

And then, almost 5 years later, I sat down and decided to actually play the song.

So the video above is the very first time EVER that this song has been performed all the way through.

And I’ll tell you what - I like that song way more now than I did when I originally wrote it. It feels more like it’s part of me because I got over my need to hide behind Garageband and the drums and the arrangement of it.

It’s a good song, and I performed it pretty well, and that was ME. It wasn’t the guitar, or the instrumentation, or the drum track, it was ME.

That’s the difference. When you decide to start your own business, you give up the privilege of passing anything off to anyone else.

Everything comes down to you. Own it. Be comfortable in your own skin. Strip away all the unnecessary stuff and just BE.

It’s more satisfying, trust me.