

Leap before you look? - bdotdub
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1498-leap-before-you-look

======
mattmaroon
He's confusing two things. "We’re always taught to look before we leap, but
it’s interesting to hear about the Segals of the world - those who succeed by
rushing forward without thinking."

My guess is that the guys didn't rush forward without thinking at all. They
probably put a lot of thought into it. But their thoughts were along the lines
of "how should we do this?" rather than "how do other people do it?" It's not
about "going with their gut" or anything like that. It's about thinking the
right way.

~~~
walterk
He isn't confusing anything. You're just taking that sentence woefully out of
context.

It's pretty obvious from the rest of the post that he's just saying, "Don't
look for all the reasons to not do something." He's not saying you shouldn't
use your brain once you've started doing it.

------
pchristensen
An inspiring article about survivorship bias. And look how much money
professional athletes make too!

~~~
shimon
Exactly. A lot of the rich people I see have taken big risks and turned out
rich. Let's all take big risks!

~~~
mixmax
Bear in mind that if you take big risks there's a 99% chance you'll be the
reason it's a risk :-)

------
jayair
I've never found much merit in this approach to situations that you have
little intelligence about.

The way I see it there are two approaches, you can either ignore the details
like the article says or you can try to think it through, find that the odds
are not in your favor and still go ahead with it (assuming that you want to go
ahead with it). He mentions that you should take the first approach for
situations that have little downside. But the risk involved only plays a part
when the cost to analyze a situation outweighs the advantage/disadvantage
caused by the outcome of the decision. According to his conclusion he is
implying that it is not worth doing the analysis before starting a business
because the outcome is not worth it which I think is wrong.

If we were to look past that and look at the real idea of article, I find that
the second approach gives you better chances of success and also has an
interesting psychological affect. Using his analogy of looking before you
leap; if you were to use the second approach I would expect you to have a
better chance landing on your feet. You also have a better chance of not
getting blindsided by problems (or using his terms, the rules). This is simply
because you were slightly more prepared and you had given the possibilities
some thought. You wouldn't be shocked and would be more "quick on you feet".

It should also be remembered that if we were to consider the percentage of
people that actually take the jump and also look at the chances of success
(regardless of the two approaches), it is certain that we are dealing with
small numbers and coupling that with the fact that human beings are bad at
translating odds into practical actions we have a lot of people that give out
such advice. Like somebody mentioned in the comments "Not knowing what you're
doing isn't sufficient for success, but it's not sufficient for failure,
either.", this applies because the the chances that second approach would
increase the odds are small. Even thought the advantage is small I would
rather take confidence in the fact that I have done my homework rather than go
in blind.

There is also one final aspect of people that take the jump; these are people
that regardless of the approach they take are clearly in love with what they
do. It is easy to underestimate as an outsider the amount of work that goes
into doing tasks like starting a business and doing it with passion. It is
funny because even for the people that take the jump, they tend to
underestimate the work that is put into it since they are having "fun".

Since he brings up the QB analogy here, let me share what I always find
interesting while watching athletes that perform at the top of their game.
They make seemingly impossible throws effortlessly but it is impossible to
tell the thought and work behind that single decision by watching them on
screen. We will probably never know what went on inside that head while making
that throw, for all we know it could have been luck.

------
steveplace
I think Seth Godin just hijacked their blog.

------
wallflower
Thinking is something that is overrated when it comes to doing

> Diener puts it this way: "Failure is information - we label it failure, but
> it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try
> something else.’ During one unforgettable moment, one boy something of a
> poster child for the mastery-oriented type - faced his first stumper by
> pulling up his chair, rubbing his hands together, smacking his lips and
> announcing, "I love a challenge."

Stanford professor Carol Dweck via
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=422625>

------
fuzzmeister
I don't think the point about quarterback IQs is necessarily valid. McNabb got
a 14 on the Wonderlic (IQ 88), but Tom Brady got a 33 (IQ 126) and Eli Manning
got a 39 (IQ 138). All are very good quarterbacks.

~~~
johns
And Peyton Manning 28. There's nothing to it. The author pulled out an
anecdote based on limited information (using the anecdote to support a theory
instead of the inverse) by Gladwell, which surprise, is postured as fact.

------
ChaitanyaSai
Quarterbacks have about 3-4 seconds in which they need to throw the ball. What
they do on the field has more to do with quick spatial intelligence and not
something the Wonderlic tests.What the Wonderlic is supposed to gauge is how
well the quarterback memorizes all the possible plays and arrangements before
the game. So a quarterback needs to have that special ability to take in the
situation in 3 seconds and narrow his predetermined options down to one. Is
this what we commonly label "gut" thinking? I don't think so.

------
Tichy
Hm, how to transfer this article to my life? Put "leap without looking" on my
TODO list? Sorry, but I have to rank this among the less useful advice I have
heard...

------
mixmax
_Makes you wonder: How many others have succeeded because they didn’t know the
rules_

A lot less than the ones that know the rules.

While these stories of people knowing absolutely nothing about what they're
getting themselves into and go onto stellar success may make for great reading
they are the absolute exception.

~~~
mixmax
Oh, and another one: _Maybe these quarterbacks succeed in part because they
don’t have the highest IQs. Maybe they go with their gut instead of
overanalyzing things._

More likely there's simply no correlation because intelligence isn't the
defining factor of a quarterback.

------
motoko
Not knowing what you're doing isn't sufficient for success, but it's not
sufficient for failure, either.

