Ex Perts

"Listen to the experts" was the other line that made my blood boil. 
Of course I listen to people who know a field inside and out. 

Scientists, for instance. Because those folks are focused on facts and experience. And that makes their judgment pretty darn valuable.

There's one thing where experts often fall short — ideas and visions that have no past. Not yet, anyway. There it would be, and still is, presumptuous to hand down a clear and crushing opinion. The real experts know this and hold back. Sometimes. But the couch experts have no idea about these conditions — the condition of speaking up only when at least a little bit of basic data is actually on the table.

Looking back over the last 51 years as an entrepreneur, I see a long list of projects. 
They've sorted themselves into two groups. On one side — the botched, the bungled, and the unsuccessful. And on the other side — the much smaller group of visions that actually got built.

I could look at both camps with wistfulness and ask myself: "Why didn't I listen to the experts?» 

Well, that turns out to be the wrong question. Because the smaller, scrappy band of the Realized — every single one of them got buried under negative, hopeless commentary the moment I opened my mouth about my plans. 
Only one expert usually had a decent read on things: my gut.

Now — I'm not letting wistfulness in. Maybe just the "will" part of it. Because both groups — the unsuccessful and the successful — share one enormous gift: they all cost a pile of passion, enthusiasm, sweat, blood, work, and money. 

And yet I'm glad — genuinely glad — that I took a run at every single one of them. 
I regret not trying far more than I regret failing. Or losing heart.

Today I'm getting my two new projects ready to launch. 

Which group will they end up in? 
No idea — but my investment of passion, enthusiasm, sweat, blood, work, and money is worth it either way.
"Wish me luck, eh?"