Imagine you’re on the highway, driving on the shoulder. You’re riding over potholes and speed bumps, trying maneuver after maneuver to gain traction and speed but you’re progressing like a snail even with increasing effort. You’re working so hard to move a few hundred feet that you don’t even notice that a few lanes to the left, through the bumper to bumper traffic, the fast lane is wide open.
Now, imagine you’re in the fast lane. The road is completely clear ahead and you’re sailing along at a comfortably smooth clip, with a lot less effort and much more ease.
Our thoughts move in a similar way. One mode of thinking is like shoulder driving, with constant work and not much space to enjoy the drive. The other type of thought is like the fast lane, where progress is smooth and easy.
Shoulder driving thought is analyzing all the different reasons you should start a business, weighing the pros and cons, researching everything you can think of for hours or years or a lifetime, reanalyzing and reweighing, strategizing about the logistics, how health insurance would work, what would happen to your 401k, what’s the best way to file taxes, what on earth should the company be named, researching how others approach naming this type of business, researching some more to see if the idea is still viable after all this time. Shoulder driving gets you somewhere, and there are times that it’s best to stay in the shoulder, but it can be exhausting to shoulder drive all the time, and you might not wind up much further than where you started.
Fast lane thought is feeling a magnetic drive to start a business, noticing all the different sparks that ignite, following them to see where they take you, noticing new sparks in the same places or in new ones, driving with ease and speed and joy.
You can always dip back into the shoulder in case of an emergency, but consider spending more time in the fast lane. It will be easier, more effective, and so much more fun.