IRON FISTS WITH A PLAN

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Sainte-Exupery

Is someone having a “case of the Mondays”? Forget about that. Most weeks, you do not even start wondering why you are doing what you are doing until you are halfway in through the week. It is already Wednesday and, now, you are just waiting until payday Thursday and freedom Friday to hit. And you tell yourself, “I will think about the future, about the big plans, this weekend. I will have some free time then.” But, soon enough, that ‘later’ becomes a ‘never. It is not the question of not being motivated or having a vision. On the contrary, you do have the vision, you have the end-result in mind, you have a goal of what it is you want to achieve, but you do not have a clear plan of how to get there.

Warren Buffet once said, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” The person who is sitting in the shade today had a vision of sitting in the shade one day. But, in order to do that, they first had to come up with a plan first. They had to work the soil and prepare the land before planting the seed. Once the seed was planted, they had to care for it and make sure it grew properly. Constantly watering it, monitoring its growth, making sure the plant is healthy each time and getting rid of any critters or animals who might hinder its growth.

“Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small.” - Sun Tzu

I already wrote an article titled ‘Great things start small’. In this article, I discussed the importance of starting small in order to achieve greatness. When you take action and complete one or two small items on your list every day, over time, you will accomplish more than you might have imagined. We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a short period of time, say one year, and underestimate what we can accomplish in a longer period of time, perhaps a decade. It is the small things done consistently over time that create big results.

Although I touched upon this topic, I have not gotten into much detail about the importance of planning and sticking to your plans. Creating a short-term-goal plan and a long-term-goal plan is crucial to your success. You might be telling yourself that you are too busy and you do not have much time to either plan or stick with the plan. In reality, we are all busy with life. But, you have to keep yourself in check and ask yourself: “am I busy for the sake of being busy in order to avoid tasks or am I busy by being productive with my day? How fast will I reach my goal if I continue at this rate making these moves?”

Let’s face it, if we enjoyed that task we would probably be on top of it already. Finding big chunks of time is near impossible, finding big chunks of time AND the motivation to start and finish that task is as likely as riding a donkey naked down the middle of the highway. Yeah, that is not going to happen.

One of my friends, Agusto, had an amazing vision of something he wanted to create. He wanted to create a company that will put the Empire company to shame. He wanted to not only sell clothing and urban sports articles in his store, but he also wanted to create programs for the city involving the youth of the community; creating partnerships with skate parks and ski resorts to offer the underprivileged youth a chance to try out and practice the sports like skateboarding and snowboarding; creating more safe spaces and community walls for kids to practice and perfect their graffiti and art skills; creating a learning environment to youths to learn more about their passions, whether its art, sports, or creating a better environment for themselves.

The goal was grandiose. It was huge – that’s what she said. But, sadly he did not know where to start. And despite the fact he made a few small moves, he did not really go anywhere with his vision. No matter what he did, he went nowhere. And sadly, his moves became less and less frequent and soon enough he just stopped going towards his goal. And the idea died. To be honest, the idea is still there. He sometimes still talks to me about it. But, his will and motivation are not there anymore.

Though, the saying coined by Edison, “vision without execution is hallucination” does not apply to him, “a goal without a plan is just a wish” by Antoine de Sainte-Exupery does.

Wu-Tang Clan and the 5-year plan

To understand the rise to power and fame of the Wu-Tang Clan, we first must look at their origins. Individually, they were a bunch of unknown rappers in New York. In 1991, Robert ‘RZA’ Diggs, known at the time as Prince Rakeem, came out with an EP that flopped. For two years after the release of that album, he worked on mastering his craft and instead of caving into the record labels demands at the time, he tried to work on his own sound and style. He, later on, created a supergroup with the combination of his cousins and a few other NYC based rappers.

RZA came up with a 5-year plan that would, not only put the whole group on the map and make them successful as a group, but also make them successful as individual rappers.

The plan consisted of signing the rappers as solo artists into different record labels, infiltrating and spreading the W. They would take their name everywhere they went. Branding was an important part of the 5-year plan. Their logo became wildly recognized around the world. Each rappers style was unique and brought something different to the table. Not only was each rappers style was unique, but they were also asked to target a specific audience.

This simple strategy of leveraging five separate record labels to grow each artist’s fan base turned artists like Ghostface Killah into stars in their own right. His first solo album in 1996, for example, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart.

The plan was viewed as a game of chess. In order to get a checkmate, RZA saw that he had to make plans and plan the right moves. By building each individual artist’s audience first, RZA guaranteed that the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album would be a huge success. And sure enough, five years after when Wu-Tang Clan assembled in Staten Island, their album Wu-Tang Forever hit number one on the Billboard charts, going platinum. It was clear, Wu-Tang Clan were not typical rappers, they were a force to be reckoned with.

In other words, “Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin ta Fuck Wit”

With each step…

Their success was, of course, attributed to their skills and talent they have acquired, to their experiences and knowledge of the game, and their willingness of taking the world by the balls and giving it their all. A big part of their success was due to the 5-year plan presented by RZA. Vision might have given them a push but the plan got the ball rolling. With the perfect timing, plans and each individuals contribution, they were able to turn a small snowflake into a killer avalanche.

If you do not have a proper plan for yourself, for your organization, for your future, you will walk aimlessly and tirelessly for days. For the last two years, I have been in that situation. But, once you set a clear path for your goal, you will be able to achieve that vision that you

have in your mind, whatever it might be. And in order to achieve that vision, you must visualize success ahead of time and work continuously to reach your goal with a clear plan in front of you. To learn more about visualization, I invite you to read the article I wrote ‘Visualizing success’.

So you have got to ask yourself what’s your five-year Wu-Tang plan?