This Might Not Work

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"

This quote by Seth Godin has stuck with me ever since I read it in one of his books Poke The Box.

And if I am not mistaken, it was in an interview with Tim Ferriss where he shared one of his mantra, "This might not work." It goes something like this,

If I'm not saying to myself, 'This might not work, '… then I haven't pushed myself hard enough.

Starting the Work Less podcast is one of the things that might not work. I've thought about starting a podcast ever since I started my blog.

And I finally did it this July to share what I've learned about doing genius work while living a good life. It's also a medium to express my worldview and connect with people who work with me now and will work with me in the future.

If I were to track things back in time, I had always been doing something that might not work. Selling logo design gigs on Fiverr might not work, but it was my first dip at making USD as a Malaysian. Starting a specialty coffee blog might not work, but I learned so much about content marketing throughout the process. Building a WordPress theme to sell on ThemeForest might not work, but I enjoyed the process of developing it and got to use it for my personal blog.

Writing on Quora might not work, but things turned out well and I became a Quora Top Writer. Reaching out to Noah Kagan to offer my help on OkDork might not work, but I ended up working full-time at AppSumo for the past five years.

Starting something new and aiming to do it well is hard. While many people want to believe that it should be easy, "this might not work" is what grounds us in reality. But it's not a gloomy one.

"This might not work" doesn't mean you will inevitably fail. Instead, it means you're doing something hard and meaningful. It means you're aware of the challenge and doing it anyway. And it means you're pushing your boundaries to get better while others settle for what's easy.

Most things I've started didn't work out for me. And it will be the same for you and everyone else. But always remember:

The opposite of something might not work is that it might just work.