Wait a second! Didn’t I just make a post last week titled Don’t Let Good Enough Be Good Enough? Yes I did. And here I am a few days later saying the opposite. So am I speaking out of both sides of my mouth? Well, if you take both statements literally then I suppose you could call me a hypocrite. But if you take a step back and consider the context of both statements, perhaps it will make more sense.

Don’t let good enough be good enough has to do with complacency or laziness. It means don’t be complacent and settle for your current situation if you can obviously do much better. Maybe you have a “good job” by conventional standards. (”Good job” is an oxymoron as far as I’m concerned.) You make enough to pay the bills, get insurance, have a retirement plan, and get a few weeks vacation every year. But you have to commute in rush hour traffic, take orders from a boss you don’t like, get annual raises that don’t keep up with inflation, and spend too much time away from your family and friends.

If that’s your situation, don’t cop out like most people and be complacent to let it be “good enough.” Don’t let good enough be good enough. There are so many people making so much money in so many business opportunities whether it’s the Internet, real estate, franchises, etc. and so much information available on how to do it successfully that you’re probably flat out lazy if you choose not to take advantage of all the opportunity surrounding us.

On the other hand, “good enough is good enough” has to do with dealing with procrastination caused by perfectionism and making lame excuses that prevent you from accomplishing your goals. For example, if you’re working on your first information product but never get it done because it’s “not good enough” and needs more work to be just perfect, you’re kidding yourself and making excuses for not finishing. There’s something deeper there whether it’s fear of failure, fear of criticism, or some other fear but the bottom line is you’re using perfectionism to hiding some other fear which is the real reason you’re not finishing the project.

In this situation, “good enough is good enough.” Just get it done, launch it, and see what happens. If it fails, so what? Figure out what went wrong and fix it. The end result is that by failing you have learned something that makes you more likely to succeed next time and what’s wrong with that? Mark Twain said “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life most of which never happened.” It’s human nature to fear the worst but the worst rarely happens. Stop worrying about it and just get it done.

I have some information products from Dan Kennedy and Ron LeGrand that are some of the worst looking things I’ve ever seen. The pages are crooked, words are misspelled, there are no fancy graphics, etc. But the information is great and these information products sell like crazy despite their appearance.

These two high school dropouts probably make more in a month than all the college professors I ever had make in a year combined because they understand that good enough is good enough. By the time the perfectionist finishes the product (if he/she ever finishes), people who understand the “good enough is good enough” principle have finished several products, learned from the mistakes they’ve made, and applied what they’ve learned going forward. Who do you think makes more money?

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