All you other Star Wars geeks out there will no doubt recognize the quote in the headline.

That's the response Yoda gave Luke when he wanted him to use the force to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp and Luke said "All right, I'll give it a try."

(For all of you who aren't Star Wars geeks, don't worry - there is a point to this).

James Brausch made a post today about taking action, which was in turn inspired by another post (actually a comment on a post) on Terry Dean's blog. The title of James' post? Act or don't act. There is no try.

I don't know whether James is a Star Wars fan himself or just happened to use a similar title, but it caught my eye nonetheless. And it was a good reminder of how I used to approach this business.

Buy the latest product, study it, study it some more. Check a couple of forums to see how other people reacted to it. Try a few things to see how it worked (usually the mechanics of how it worked - not the practical application). Study some more.

Eventually I might "try" a few techniques but more often than not I'd be on to the next product before I ever saw any serious results from the last one.

The only way to get anything done is to act. At the very worst, if it fails, you've learned what *not* to do.

The reality is, it's infinitely more likely that you'll see some kind of success by acting than by waiting until the stars are all in alignment and everything feels perfect.

You can always go back and improve things, but until you take action, you're not going to get anywhere.