Predictions and Master Plans

“The task of man is not to see what lies ahead dimly in the distance, but do the duty to see what lies clearly ahead."
-Thomas Carlyle

I have a distrust for people that try to predict the future and have a grand master plan. New startup founders do this all the time and hardly ever get it right.
They love to stand on a big rock like Moses and proclaim the future. And why does it almost never work?

People have a propensity to believe their master plan and predictions because THEY created them. And that blindness is a breeding ground for bad decisions and missteps.

Some of the best innovators in the world constantly question their decisions, and are just as apt to change their conclusions they once were so bullish on. 
Always learning. Always iterating. Always proving themselves wrong.

The best thing you could be then?

Opportunistic.

You can't predict the future but you CAN prepare for it.

Do your daily work to prepare for opportunities. And when you are presented an opportunity that you feel strongly about, you are then prepared to act quickly.

Personal note: Our company Soundstripe has been agile enough to seize one opportunity after another. There were no grand master plans to take over the music industry. Instead, we were prepared and nimble enough to take on things that presented themselves. And that's how we still operate. And I encourage you all to do the same.

The Cake Baker.

You started the bakery because you loved baking but all you ever do now is run the baking business.

There is a difference between a freelancer and entrepreneur and if you are not clear about what you want, this can become a nightmare.

If your goal is to always bake cakes, don't do entrepreneur kinds of things. Instead, make the world's best cake and be known for it. Be expensive. Be exclusive. The customer is buying YOU.

And if you want to be an entrepreneur, even though baking is your product, you can't do it forever. Systematize it. Scale it. And work yourself out of a job. That's the ultimate goal of an entrepreneur.