Voices in my head

"What in the world have I done?" I put my head in my hands and said it again, "At some point I must have thought this was a good idea, but... what... have... I... done???"

In CATS:The Nine Lives of Innovation, Stephen C. Lundin writes about social entrepreneurs and how that which they do is both caught and taught. Despite doing innovation well because of their nature, social entrepreneurs get better at it (nurture) by applying the 9 CAT principles. Principle number one, he says, is this: Overcome the clutter of life. Social Entrepreneurs, he tells us, must learn to quiet the voices, the clutter, we hear in our heads. These voices, sometimes loud and audible, are "full of doubts and fears. Often, just as a CAT is beginning a creative effort, a voice says, 'You're not good enough,' 'It will never work.' 'Remember what a fool you made of yourself the last time you tried something like this?'

As I sat, head in hands, the voices were very loud. I was, at that moment, stopped in the pouring rain at the end of a dead-end street, lost somewhere in the town of Taree NSW which I had flown into 45 minutes earlier. I came to Taree to pick up an unseen and untested 1985 Econovan with camping equipment I had bought outright on ebay. Like Jacob who expected to find his beautiful Rachel under the bridal veil only to find her not-so-attractive sister Leah (Laban their father did the swap), I discovered that the van was not all that it was advertised to be.  In fact, I struggled to get it into gear and over 60kph!  I doubted it would ever survive the 600k trip back to Canberra.

On the top of all this, the moment I drove it out onto the road I lost my way.  My only map was in my phone which now failed to connect to any server.  Around and around in the pouring rain, grinding gears, holding up the little traffic there was.  It wasn't long before my luck ran out and the twists and turns led me down an unmarked road.

Exhausted, lost and having lost all hope of ever returning to my home, the voices started to win. 'That was a silly thing to do -- buy a van like this one sight unseen.' 'Won't everyone laugh at you when they find out what a rip off you got taken for.' 'How can you even face telling the world that you just threw away $5000 for nothing!'

If it had not been for the pouring rain I think I would have easily left that vehicle parked at that dead-end and have gone off into the bush which beckoned to me. But then it happened. The words which I had read earlier from Stephen's book came back to me: quiet the voices in your head. I sat bolt upright and said to myself, 'Don't listen to those voices and get on with it, this is a good idea.' And that is what I did.

I learned at that moment that when you are facing the end of a dead-end street, there's really only one way to go. It's not really a tough decision just turn around. And that way led me to more streets which led me to an area where my phone maps connected to the server and soon I was walking through the door of my motel room. 12 hours later I was laying on my sofa in my house. And, I'm sure, within a few weeks I will look at my van and say, 'That was a really good deal, Ron, you've done well.'

So I say to you, "Quiet those voices and get on with your good idea, you can do it, I believe in you!"