If You Aren’t Embarrassed by Your First Version, You’re Not Moving Fast Enough

I listen to a lot of podcasts. There’s always a point in time where the host(s) reflect back on their first episodes and say, “We don’t encourage anyone to listen to our early episodes, but if you must, you can find them here.”  They quickly explain with some variation of, “We didn’t know what we were doing, the audio was terrible, and our interviewing style was horrendous.”

But, guess what? They now know what they are doing, the audio is dialed in and they’ve perfected their interviewing style. None of that would have happened unless they started somewhere, and that starting point was version 1.0.

“Remember, 90% out the door is better than 100% in the drawer!”

Yes, version 1.0 of anything we do for the first time is probably cringeworthy. This could be a presentation, video, application, report, or even a podcast for that matter. The chances of being awesome on your first attempt at anything are slim to none. But, you’ve got to start somewhere, and then you can make things better.

Remember, 90% out the door is better than 100% in the drawer! Rather than be embarrassed about version 1.0 of whatever you do, embrace it as the first step needed to get to where you are today.