Like father, like son

This morning I realized that I've written two things about Father that are two sides of the same coin.

• On the one hand I've written that, from a professional point of view, he was much better at thinking than at deciding. (Peter Drucker says you can't expect the same person to be good at both.) (See for example this post or this one.)
• On the other hand I've written that he more or less pissed away some 30 years of retirement, doing plenty of little things but none of the big things he had wanted to do. (See for example here.)

And of course these are exactly the same thing. Because Achieving Something Big requires more than just intelligence, research, or planning. It requires lots and lots of decisions. What's more, they have to be good decisions, or mostly. There are so many things that can go wrong in any enterprise—many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip—and you have to steer successfully around them all before you reach your Achievement. And the only way to make good decisions reliably is to have a lot of practice at it. And this means that Achieving Something requires executive skills … which were exactly the skills that my Father did not have.

Two sides of the same coin.

And of course this is exactly what's going on with me. You've heard me talk at length about how I have "written a book" about the stuff I used to do in my professional life, but then how I have absolutely frozen at the prospect of publishing it. (See especially this post and this one.) And that paralysis continues. I still come right up to the edge of Doing Something, and then shy away. I still take refuge in divination rather than finding live, human mentors to talk to. I feel like I desperately need advice, but I don't know how to find human beings to give me that advice. And so I end up running the engine in Neutral.

Like father, like son. So what do I do?

Talk to someone! 

Great, who?

Don't you know anybody?

Sure. I've got some friends. I've got family. In the past I've connected with this and that person, and I could call them again, I guess.

So there you go!

Which one?

Geez, just pick one!

And what do I say?

Tell them you are stuck and need to find a way forward.

And what? Ask them about the publication business? Ask them how to market a book so that somebody buys it besides me buying a few copies to give to folks I know? Most of them will tell me they don't know anything about the publication business.

And it's out of the question to call the ones who do?

I don't know. Maybe not.

So what, then?

I'm afraid.

Of what?

I don't know.

Fine. Maybe you need to figure that out. But don't spend too long at it. There's a reason somebody invented the term "analysis-paralysis."

Yes, I'm sure there is.