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Episode 943 · Mar 25, 2024

How to Take Action and Stop Waiting for the Perfect Plan

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George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind, returns to his Eight Steps to Creating Massive Results series with a direct challenge: stop overthinking and start moving. In this episode, George shares a rebroadcast of a solo talk he gave the previous year, packed with practical insights on why action is the foundation of every breakthrough.

Why Waiting for the Right Plan Keeps You Stuck

The modern trap is strategy paralysis. You spend so much time trying to identify your passion, your purpose, your "one thing," that you never actually begin. George pushes back on the idea that clarity has to come before momentum. The truth, he argues, is the opposite: clarity comes from doing, not from thinking.

"The problem with spending too much time in your strategy is that you're not going to create any results. And results are all that matter. Results is what creates your beliefs. Results is what creates new experiences and provides opportunity."

Most people wait for the fire to start before they add the wood. George flips that image: you have to put the wood in first. Action creates solutions and strategies. You do not think your way into the answer; you move your way there.

How Movement Creates Momentum

Momentum does not start from a standstill. This is pure physics, and George applies it to every area of life: sales, business, fitness, and daily routines. If you are stuck, the fix is not more planning. It is movement.

"If you're having trouble working out or whatever it is, just get up and move. Just go for a walk. Just move around. Sometimes movement alone will create the momentum that you're looking for."

The advice is deceptively simple: start somewhere. Say yes, then figure it out. The more you move, the more you experience, and the more momentum builds on itself.

Stop Fighting the Current of Life

One of George's most vivid lessons in this episode comes from a tubing trip on Utah's Provo River with his kids. For the first half of the float, he fought the current, paddling hard to keep his tube away from overhanging brush along the banks. He wore himself out and had less fun than everyone around him.

At a bridge marking the halfway point, he decided to stop fighting. On the second half, he relaxed and let the current carry him. The result surprised him: the current naturally guided him away from the brush. He enjoyed the ride, arrived easier, and realized the current was never designed to harm him.

The application is direct. When you fight against the circumstances of your life, against what others are doing, against things that feel uncertain, you exhaust yourself without gaining ground. Trust that things are happening for you, not to you. Go with the current.

Taking Calculated Action Without Being Haphazard

George does not advise reckless flailing. Drawing on an example from motivator Eric Thomas, he contrasts two types of action-takers. The first is the Rambo style: shooting at everything in sight with no real aim. The second is the Jason Bourne style (from the Bourne Identity and Bourne Ultimatum films): moving fast, moving selectively, firing at specific targets, getting in and out efficiently.

The goal is to be like Jason Bourne. Take action on multiple opportunities until you find what fits, but stay intentional. Diversification is not a weakness when you are still discovering your path. It is smarter than staying frozen. Once you identify what works, concentrate your full force on it.

"It's important that you start taking action. Don't be haphazard though. Take action on opportunities until you find what it is that you're looking for. Just don't be stagnant."

What "Just Do It" Is Missing

The Nike slogan resonates, but George argues it leaves something out for entrepreneurs and growth-minded people. "Just do it" implies you already know what "it" is. Many people do not. They are still searching. His version: just do something. Become obsessed with action itself, not with finding the perfect action first.

The something you do does not need to be your final answer. It needs to move you. Results will come from those actions. Those results will shape your beliefs, open doors, and eventually reveal the opportunity you were looking for all along.

Action Steps

  • Identify the single next step you can take toward your most important goal today. Not the whole plan, just the next step.
  • When you feel stuck or uninspired, begin with physical movement: stand up, go for a walk, change your environment. Let momentum build from there.
  • Stop resisting circumstances you cannot control. Identify one area where you have been fighting the current and choose to go with it this week.
  • Give yourself permission to explore more than one direction at once. Take action on two or three opportunities simultaneously until one clearly gains traction.
  • At the end of each day, ask: did I move forward, or did I think forward? Commit to choosing movement.

It is never too late to stop waiting and start becoming the person you were meant to be. Pick the next step, take it, and trust that the path will reveal itself as you move.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

All right, all right. Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. I hope you had an amazing weekend. We are going to get started today. We're still on our series, our Eight Steps to Creating Massive Results in Your Life series. And today we're going to be talking about actions and taking action. And I think what's so important to remember here is that we're going to be talking about taking action, but really what you need to be thinking is, what is that next step? What is the specific step that's specific that I can do that's the very next item that'll take me closer to my goal. Sometimes we get caught way too much up in what actions should we take, and we just need to think about what the next step is. So today in the podcast, I want to go through that with you. I want to talk with you about that, and I'm actually going to play you an episode that I did last year this time, which was about just doing something and taking action. I think it has some great content that'll help you. And also, I want you to really think hard about what actions you can take in your specific life, your specific business. And then we'll talk tomorrow some more about discipline. I look forward to talking with you then. All right. Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I hope you're having a great week. Today I want to talk to you about something that I think will help you to get your mindset right. And that's the topic of just do something. Just do something. I want you to learn to become obsessed with your actions, especially when you haven't quite determined your plan. You know, I think it's interesting that Nike, you know, the Nike slogan, just do it. I really think that slogan sometimes doesn't do us justice. And the reason I say that is, you know, when you hear that slogan, just do it. I think so many people, especially entrepreneurs today are like, well, what should I be doing? What's my purpose? What is my purpose and passion? What's my focus? And you're so busy trying to figure out what it is that's going to be the next big thing, the next put you on the map, make you a millionaire, have success and things like that. And in the end, there's just no action. And what I would suggest, my advice is just to move forward. Just start somewhere. Start something. Most of the time, I talk to people all the time. They're just saying, listen, what do I do? And I'm trying to figure out what I'm good at. And I'm trying to figure out what I want to focus on. And I keep telling them, just start moving. The problem with spending too much time in your strategy is that you not going to create any results And results are all that matter Results is what creates your beliefs Results is what creates new experiences and provides opportunity So I'm gonna give you a few of my thoughts, my advice on what you could do based on my own personal experience and life lessons. And the first one is, actions create solutions and strategies. Solutions and strategy is not gonna do it. Actions will create your solutions and strategies. You know, you're not going to just sit there and think your way into the solution that you have. Very few successful people that I know knew what it, I'm doing the quotes, it was. They just maybe had a general idea. Very few people knew exactly what their ultimate opportunity was going to look like in the beginning. And what I mean is that they had an idea of what they liked and what they had interest in, but they just started moving. It's like I've said before on podcasts, say yes and then figure it out. You've got to be able to take action because your actions will create solutions and strategies as you start to experience things. That's so important. You don't get the fire before you put the wood in the fire. You've got to take action. You've got to move in order to create solutions. The second thing is movement creates momentum. I don't know if you know anything about momentum, but momentum does not just start from stop. You've got to start moving in order to create any type of momentum. It's pure science. If you think about it, you've got to start doing things sometimes, especially with whether it's sales floors or businesses or employees. Sometimes it's just a matter of creating excitement artificially. Just move and, and, and, you know, get talking to people, get moving through with the opportunities you have, get moving through your day. If you're having trouble working out or whatever it is, just get up and move. Just go for a walk. Just move around. Sometimes movement alone will create the momentum that you're looking for. And the more you move, the more you'll experience, the more momentum that you'll get. The third thing I wanted to mention is don't fight the current of life. I talk about this so much because when you try to fight, you've got to stop trying so hard to be different than everyone else. And, you know, and trying to figure out how your unique thing is going to be this and that. You're already unique. You're already different. There's no, they talk about there being over 500 billion people ever that have been on this planet and none of them are the same. The bottom line is you are already unique. Just stop trying so hard to fight against everything else. Stop fighting those around you. Sometimes you guys call it competitivism, but it's really jealousy. Stop fighting others and stop pushing against the things that are happening in your life. Just go with the current Go with the current of life I tell you a story This is actually one I hadn thought of but I going to tell you this story So I live in Utah and there a river called the Provo River that flows through Utah. And a lot of people during the summertime, definitely not during the winter right now, but during the summertime, they'll go and take these tubes and they'll float down the river because it has kind of a nice current. It goes through and, you know, you've got to picture this current. A lot of people are fly fishing and, you know, people will be out in this, in this river having fun, but they'll tube from the top down to the bottom of this river, part of this river. And there's a bunch of brush and trees that kind of hang over the sides. And so, you know, I went on this tubing trip this one time with my, my kids. And, you know, I remember the first half of this trip very distinctly because I would, you'd get in the tube and this current would carry you like right into the brush and right into the, the trees along the side of the river. And so I was just fighting it and I was kind of trying to paddle and paddle away because you didn't want your inner tube to pop, right? So I was fighting this whole first half of this trip. I was kind of pushing away from the current and I did a really good job. I didn't pop my deal, but to be quite honest, it really wore me out. I got tired. I didn't have as much fun. Everybody's splashing and kicking around and several people were just kind of pushing and trying so hard to stay away from, you know, the trees that would kind of pop your tube. Well, there's a part where there's a bridge about halfway down where you get up, you pull your tube out, you walk over, you get on the other side of the bridge, and then you get back in. And I thought to myself, this is crap. I am not going to be working so hard. Plus, I was already tired. I said, this time, I don't even care. I don't care if I run right into the trees, my tube pops, whatever. I'll swim the rest of the way, right? But you know, the funny thing is this. When I stopped fighting the current and I just relaxed and I went with the flow, somehow or other, that current always avoided the brush. You know, every once in a while, it might get a little close, but it always avoided the brush. And the irony is that I enjoyed the journey a lot more. I had a lot more fun. It was easy going. And I realized that that current was just designed to take me down the river. It wasn't designed to put me in harm's way or to pop my tube and things like that. So that's a story I've thought about multiple times. So when I say stop fighting the current of life. Just trust that things are going to happen for you and not against you or to you and stop fighting against everything that's happening in your life. Now, I also want to suggest that successful people always, always think win-win or both. What I mean by that is you're so busy sometimes or we're so busy trying to pick the one thing that we think is going to be the winner, the one that we passionate about that going to serve our purpose or create the success And I not saying that it isn important to focus but it okay to diversify your actions until you find something that going to be your number one thing You know the looking for the number one thing is sometimes creating inactivity. And just remember, diversity isn't bad. It's okay to shoot at multiple targets until you hit something and then you can fire cannonballs at it. It's important for you to take action. And along those lines, though, I love an example that Eric Thomas uses. you know so many people are playing video games and things right now so many people in life are going out into life like rambo and they're just freaking shooting everything in their path they're just shooting like crazy they're you know they're they're shooting walls and people and like doesn't matter what it is they're just out there it's a metaphor by the way of shooting at opportunities when it would be much better for you to be like a jason born from the movie the born ultimatum or the Bourne identity. Where Jason Bourne, he moves fast. He moves selective though. He fires at a target that he wants to hit and he's not hitting random stuff. He fires, he does his job, he gets in and out, he moves quickly. So what I'm saying to you is that it's important that you start taking action. Don't be haphazard though. Take action on opportunities until you find what it is that you're looking for. Just don't be stagnant. Just don't be caught up in the strategy or the trying to find things. Action will create that success for you. You know, I know that there's so many times that we fight against things in life, but if you would just go with the current, like I said, you'd stop fighting the current and you just go with the current, you take action and you realize that it's okay to take action on things that may not be your long-term because over time, that's going to help you to create success. It's going to help you to find the opportunity that's there. And you'll continue to deal with life until you learn from your experiences. And if you don't have those experiences, you're not going to learn from them. So I believe that if you will take action and you will start being obsessed with action and do something, do everything, do whatever it is that's in front of you, I will suggest that you'll find the things that you'll get successful and happy with, and you'll find success and you'll create results. And I believe that that action will create the results that will guide you where you need to be into life. So that's my message for today. I hope it's something that helps you. I hope you'll learn to become obsessed with your actions and not just with finding that thing that you're looking for. I think that thing will come along as you take action in life. Anyway, that's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing week. I look forward to talking with you tomorrow. Once again, this is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind.

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About the host
George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

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