It’s become a cliche…
“Just take massive action, brah!”
I hear it all the time from gurus on social media.
And they’re not wrong.
But what’s often overlooked is that there’s 2 types of “action.”
CONSUMPTION.
And…
PRODUCTION.
Consumption includes things like reading, watching, listening.
While production is stuff like planning, writing, editing, recording, publishing, designing, building, teaching, creating.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with consuming. It’s a necessary ingredient to success. And if you’re consuming good stuff — both mentally and physically — then it’s going to amplify the productive actions you’re taking.
But too often, I see folks lean in the wrong direction.
Their ratio is way off.
…Especially when their business is small and struggling to get off the ground.
And herein lies the problem:
Too many folks think that a lack of knowledge is what’s holding them back.
They don’t have all the answers yet. So they convince themselves that they gotta invest a lot of time to learn, learn, LEARN.
And as a result, they spend most of their time:
- Reading books / articles / emails
- Watching courses / webinars
- Listening to podcasts / audiobooks
- Overanalyzing business metrics
And while learning is important, what they’re not doing is putting what they just learned into practice by:
- Planning the steps needed to achieve their goals
- Developing content and copy
- Creating SOPs & processes for repetitive tasks
- Training employees and delegating projects
- Outreach for JV partnerships or high-ticket sales
Now, as someone who publishes consumable content for a living, it’s not exactly in my best interest to expose this issue.
But if you want real results, you gotta produce more than you consume.
In fact, I’d say that at a minimum, you should spend 4 hours producing for every hour you spend consuming.
And when your business is in the early stages it’s even more important. If that’s the case, you should even consider making that ratio closer to 90/10.
Cause when I see folks struggling…
It’s almost never because they’re not consuming enough.
It’s cause they’re not producing enough.
Don’t let that happen to you.
Your pen pal,
Matt Rizvi