Why Super Villains ALWAYS Lose

Starting with the End in mind

So my wife and I are watching Captain America. (The first one, haven’t seen the new one yet.) It’s the moment where Captain invades the weapons factory and Red Skull realizes this day will not end well for him. He hits the self destruct button and that’s when it hits me.

“Villains always create self destruct buttons!”

That’s why they lose…

If you are building your dream house, career or fortress of mayhem, you can’t have a self destruct button. You are starting the process with failure baked right in, just quit now.

When I told my father I was going to build my own company he said, “Well son, you have two options Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is following your goal, and Plan B is to make Plan A work.”

There is no room for Plan B, it distracts from Plan A. The problem gets worse because Plan A has to live in the real world and Quitting gets to be a fantasy.

Plan A gets launched and gets real feedback. You live the hurdles and barriers. You feel the nights with no sleep and the uncomfortable conversations with your loved ones.

Plan B is always a perfect state, you haven’t experienced it yet, so it feels good to day dream about it. You must kill your thoughts of Plan B. Plan A needs you, it needs all of you.

You have to believe you can win. You have to believe in your product. You have to believe there is a Job that your product fits perfectly and there are people with that Job that can’t wait to pay you for it.

When you say you are going to hunt whales, take the tartar sauce with you! (credit: Zig Ziglar for that tartar sauce line)

-Ervin