Banjo Rigsby’s Unsolicited Advice for Anybody Who Wants to Accomplish Anything

If you want to accomplish a particular result, make your plans and then act upon them quickly. Do not wait until you have perfected your proposal. Waiting until you have perfected your proposal is unnecessary and actually diminishes your likelihood of success. That is because...

...The Proposal is simply the first, and least important, part of the process of achieving a goal.

Think of your proposal as the beginning of a conversation with friends or acquaintances you want to persuade, a conversation that will continue into the early hours of the morning. The ideas you are proposing are the "Hello! How are you? Did you lose weight? How are the kids/dogs/cats/snails? Have you had lunch?" part of the conversation. They prepare your audience, the people you are trying to convince, for helping you accomplish whatever you are trying to accomplish. The proposal is the excuse you need to get them to talk about your plan. So get them talking about your plan, already! And keep talking until you convince them of it!

Banjo is assuming here that whatever you want to accomplish requires the support and active participation of other people. That may not seem to be the case in your instance. However, Banjo would argue (and, indeed, is arguing) that even if you toil by yourself with no help from others or from the power grid or from an efficient resource distribution system or from the fruits of the labors of others who long ago built the building in which you are toiling or plumbed the plumbing you are utilizing during breaks between spurts of creative fervor, Banjo would argue (and, indeed, is arguing) that even if you create that masterwork that will change the way the world thinks about your area of mastery (and beyond) all by yourself, the propagation of your influence will require the active participation of other people. You might argue otherwise. Banjo offers you his unsolicited advice regardless.

Many people focus too much on their plan or proposal. Focus on it just enough to make it comprehensible to you and your closest associates. Then push it out there. Make other people consider it. Share it with The Decision-Makers, the people whose support you need in order to accomplish your purpose. Share it with The Rabble, the people whose opinions The Decision-Makers claim not to care about but whose opinions often drive The Decision-Makers to make decisions that, surprise!, support the desires of The Rabble. Do not focus solely on convincing The Decision-Makers, for the reason stated above. Do not focus solely on The Rabble, because they can be devilishly difficult to convince. Work to get both groups thinking and talking about it, simultaneously. Simply thinking and talking about it. When The Rabble tells The Decision-Makers, "We are thinking and talking about THIS, although we do not necessarily know how we feel about it" and you have already proposed THIS to The Decision-Makers, a wondrous thing happens. The Decision-Makers start to believe that THIS was their idea. And The Rabble are thinking and talking about it. So as The Decision-Makers think and talk about THIS, and as The Rabble thinks and talks about THIS, THIS starts to seem inevitable. Why haven't we done THIS before? How could we have lived for so long without THIS? So The Decision-Makers decide, and THIS is done. Your goal is accomplished!

That is how you accomplish whatever it is you wish to accomplish. Banjo did not say you would receive credit for your ideas. Perhaps some day Banjo will offer advice for People Who Want to Receive Credit For Their Own Good Ideas For Which Other People Have Taken and Received Credit.