You Can Just Do Things

You should do almost everything you can in life to avoid needing to ask permission. Tough task when you needed to ask Ms Johnson to go to the bathroom when you were 7 years old.

The best things in life — the most productive, fulfilling and liberating — begin when you stop waiting for someone to validate your ideas and you just do them anyway.

We’ve built an entire mythology around starting. There are frameworks. Templates. Morning routines. Mentor check-ins. Everyone wants to tell you how to begin — but most of them skip the part where you actually, you know, begin.

Shoutout to Tai Lopez or Taio Cruz or whoever else is part of that recurring online course loop of marketers selling courses to other marketers on how to sell courses to other marketers.

All of this is just another version of the Midwit Meme.

Greg Isenberg recently put this perfectly:

That moment has never been easier to reach. The tools are too good. The friction is almost gone.

• AI will help you build a prototype in a weekend.

• You can reach millions of people without a media company.

• You can learn any skill with a search bar and 90 minutes of focus.

I’ve been running a D&D campaign for some friends and like any good over-prepper, I use a few tools. ChatGPT helps me flesh out the world but all my actual session notes and lore end up stored somewhere else entirely. It’s clunky. I kept thinking: Why aren’t these two things integrated?

I read George Mack’s essay on High Agency last week, cut to:

Maybe I should just build it.

But, I figured I should probably validate the idea first.

Cue two research deep-dives into ChatGPT, a podcast on market testing and eventually signing up for Lovable so I could build a landing page without knowing how to code. English is the new coding language it actually feels like magic.

The result: Worldscribe

Not perfect, but it’s enough to run ads, gauge interest and figure out if this is something people would actually pay for.

The barriers that used to make “just doing things” hard have collapsed. Which makes the biggest remaining barrier… you.

Being “Ready” is a Myth

We wait to feel ready. For some sign that the moment has arrived. That our ambition has crystallized. That we’ve found “the thing” that justifies the effort. As if those little Kronk’s from Emperor’s New Groove are going to pop up on our shoulders and randomly agree on, “Yep that’s the thing!”

But general ambition — the fuzzy sense that you want to do something important — doesn’t get sharper by thinking harder. It gets sharper by doing things. Anything.

Writing. Recording. Building. Launching. Testing.

Clarity doesn’t precede action. It emerges from it.

The successful people you admire? Most of them didn’t “find their calling.” They picked something, started and found traction through motion. They got feedback. Learned where the energy was. Then followed the heat.

What they didn’t do was sit around asking if it was the right idea. They made it right by moving.

Do The Thing.

The reason "just doing things" works so well is brutally simple: Action creates data.

Isenberg, again:

That data shows you whether you’re full of shit. It exposes what’s working and what’s not. It stops you from endlessly planning your way to nowhere.

And yet, so much advice pushes in the opposite direction. Think more. Plan more. Wait for the perfect niche, brand, strategy. Build a “flywheel.” Design your decade.

But here’s what most people miss: you don’t need a ten-year plan when you haven’t even taken ten steps.

You can’t steer a parked car.
And you can’t find your thing until you start doing things.

Words I Wish I Wrote

Links & Learnings

• I kind of love this idea…

• Do not lie to yourself. There are consequences.

• Avoid small talk with 2 questions:

  • Working on anything exciting recently?

  • What was the highlight of your day?

Psst… DSTLLD has a podcast now, too. I know — like the world needs another podcast, right? But here’s the thing: if you can tolerate my written rambles, you’ll probably find my in-person yammering… well, moderately tolerable. It’s basically me and a guest chatting about the same offbeat stuff you read here, except now you get to hear me stumble over big words in real time. I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the universe (trust me, I’ve listened to it), but if you like DSTLLD, there’s a good chance you won’t hate it. Win-win! Subscribe or follow on your favourite podcast platform:

• Youtube

• Spotify

• Apple

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PHOTW: 90% of raising good kids is choosing your co-parent well.