Alan Weiss is one of my favourite authors and content creators. I have read a number of his books, subscribed to his newsletters, and even attended one of his workshops (in Los Angeles, during my honeymoon). Alan is a coach’s coach. While his content is likely and varied, and the topic he covers that I find most relevant is how to be a better coach/advisor/consultant.

Every Tuesday morning I receive Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo (the joys of being in the first time zone in the world means I’m a day behind the news). These are brief weekly emails of encouragement covering a single topic of value. This week, Alan’s topic was about his approach to writing books. He is a prolific author, and shares the secret of his approach to writing: don’t self-edit.

I don’t ask myself if the last chapter or paragraph or sentence or word could be somehow “better.” That’s because even if it could, it’s not worth the revision. Success trumps perfection (emphasis added).

Dr Alan Weiss, Monday Morning Memo, 25 February 2024.

In other words, Dr Weiss relies on his first version being good enough. This is a powerful message. Too often, we overanalyse our own work, attempting to achieve perfection. I know I do. At any one time I have 30 to 40 draft blogs sitting on my blog dashboard, waiting to be reworded, rewritten, improved, perfected. For all my prescriptions about stopping when you get good enough, I don’t take my own medicine.

So I took some time to reflect on that.

I realised that my delay in writing – my obstacle – to just doing it was a lack of confidence. I can talk all day – as a business consultant, I am paid by the word – but when I write, I am striving for a level of completeness and clarity that I rarely feel that I achieve in my first draft.

Alan Weiss, on the other hand, is an expert communicator – written and spoken – so I am guessing he is more proficient at the no-draft version of his work.

This proficiency impacts the whole concept of good enough. Assessing whether you have met the market requires a level of skill in the subject. Few would be confident a novice will get it right (whatever ‘it’ is), but we rely on experts all the time. ‘Good enough’ relies on a certain level of experience and skill.

It is also important to acknowledge we all have different styles. For me part-and-parcel with Good Enough is The Joy of Iteration. The blog format works well for me because I get to update my essays as often as I like. I let my creativity be released in small steps. I would love to write a book, but I know I would fuss over it far longer than is necessary. Weiss’s rapid publishing approach works for him. It doesn’t work anywhere as well for me. After publishing the first version of this blog, I edited it for clarity within 10 minutes. I then generated the AI image above and added it about an hour later. I then added the links to Weiss’s newsletter and other blogs I have written the following day, and made some other edits. Finally (so far), I added this paragraph. I am jealous that Alan can write the way he does. I’m still learning.

This blog is a part of my discussions on the Good Enough concept. See this blog for a list of other discussions on this topic.