A friend sent me a business plan the other day. He outlined four or five elements of the project he was launching and wanted my feedback on each.

In our haste to get started, we jump ahead.

He’d already decided to launch a project. To make it a non-profit. To build it on a scale of a million dollars a year. To do projects that would involve certain types of growth but avoid others. To include primarily live events instead of online or media properties. He’d also decided not to create a self-propelling movement, not to be tribe-focused and not to be huge (or tiny).

That’s a lot of decisions to make before you start.

Someone I met has a big idea. He asked me, "What should I title the book so the publisher will promote it?" There’s a book? There’s a publisher?

Your choices used to be astonishingly limited. Now, they’re relatively infinite. Not just the choice of what color to make the logo, but the whether or not choices. Perhaps you don’t need a live conference. Perhaps you don’t need to write a book. Perhaps you don’t need to start a non-profit. Perhaps you can spread your ideas and generate impact with more speed and more power but with a lot less traditional overhead.

I’m probably wrong, but making the decision before you make the decision seems backward.