- Skydiving.
- Planning stage: Before you jump, make sure you know how to pull the release, and the secondary release. Make sure you have a parachute strapped to your back. Make sure you know the correct way of landing to avoid injury.
- Action stage: COUNT TO 10, PULL CORD.
- Running with the bulls.
- Planning stage: Picking out routes, making sure your sneakers fit appropriately, and knowledge of how to jump over a barrier in case of emergency should all be covered previously to the start of the event. I’d recommend finding someone slower than you to run next to, so you have a measuring tool as to how you are doing…
- Action stage: RUN.
For both of these activities, I also recommend knowing all of your prayers, having your will completed, and letting your family know that you love them, just in case.
With both of these examples, there is a point in which you can change your mind. When you are planning, you can decide, “This isn’t really a good idea. You know what? Forget it.” You can look at what you want to accomplish, what your goal is, and weigh out whether the plan of attack is going to work. Once you commit to action, the time for planning is over.
When a bull is bearing down on you, it’s a bad time to think, “Maybe I should wear something other than my red windbreaker…”
With any important decision, there are three distinct stages. The first is the planning. The second is the action, and the third is the debriefing, or evaluation. They are separate entities, and blending them is a recipe for failure. It’s a little too late to still be planning when you are falling from 10,000 feet. It is also too soon to be evaluating how the jump went when still in midair. If your chute doesn’t open, and you’re already calling the jump a success, I think your evaluation system is a little flawed.
Another frequently occurring problem is over planning. There are people that have gone online, read blogs about skydiving, read articles on the best equipment to use, and where the best places are in the world to see the greatest scenery. They may be able to tell you what the ideal plane is for jumping, how to maneuver in the air before releasing your chute, or how to brace for impact in the case of an emergency. They are virtual experts. I say “Virtual” because they have never actually jumped out of a plane, and probably never will, since they are collecting “all of the information” before they act.
People who know everything about a subject without actually doing said subject are not experts; they are researchers.
To bring it back into our world of expertise, make sure you are not blending the stages in your marketing in the same manner. Plan out your marketing. Then do it. Then evaluate. The time for second guessing is before you take action. The time for evaluating is after the event has had enough time for some real answers. Make sure you do things in the right order, and commit to each step completely. The alternative is jumping out of a plane, and hoping that everything just works out.
