Agility, not haste.

Mind chattering is the continuous narrative going on in our heads. It is the raw material for Sci-Fi writers.

The Moon landing: Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon depicted three people being sent to the Moon in a spacecraft from Florida – with some similarities to the actual mission 104 years later.

Videophones: The first example of a video phone appearing on screens was in the 1927 film Metropolis, although it was considerably larger than the smartphones we see today.

Atomic bomb: HG Wells predicted the atomic bomb in his 1914 novel The World Set Free – which featured “indefinitely” exploding bombs based on then-early nuclear science.

Several athletes and celebrities claim that they make the narrative go away with a sharp focus on what they are doing. No. The chatter does not disappear. They learn to ignore it. How? With an intense focus on what they are doing at the moment.

Imagine a cocktail hour at an investment brokers convention. You are listening to a diverse conversation of people talking about different things. Suddenly somebody talks about the most effective strategy for continued rapid growth. It is the strategy used in stock market investing — limit or delay your investments in “would-be winners” and let the proven winners Win Big. It reinforces the “proven winner” by investing more into it first.

There lies the answer to a resource allocation problem you have been wrestling with for months.

Once you discover the solution to a problem, it is time to ignore the chatter and act with a sharp focus.

Agility, not haste.

Most business schools and self-proclaimed business gurus will tell you to think, think, and think. I will propose that you follow Nike’s slogan, “Just do it.” Be agile. Dive in. Make it personal and be passionate.

Agility is not haste, and we do not abandon our senses or responsibility. We leave the fear of failing or some kind. This is the only way you can pursue the work with a sharp focus, tenacious implementation of the task, and nothing else.

Later, there’s time to improve, add more features, change the delivery mechanism, and maybe retreat and adjust. But right now, once you have the idea or solution to a nagging problem, make haste, please.